Lilac Fantasies
by ChilaliSnowbird
Summary: All it takes for a dream to resurface is a sleepy ferret and a brother who has kept the family secret for decades. A slow-paced, snarky tale of goblins, kings, fantasy artists, dreams, and how today's youth just isn't what it used to be.
1. Here be sparkles

LILAC FANTASIES

A Labyrinth Fan Fic by Birgitte Heuschkel

This is a work of tribute to Jim Henson's "Labyrinth". No money is being made and much love is being shared. I own nothing but a lilac tree out in my yard and a horde of ferrets.

The marble floor was cold but there was warmth radiating from somewhere up there amidst a luxurious supply of dark charcoal grey satin. She dropped her toy and crawled up one boot discarded by the bedside and sniffed before poking her head in. Warmth. Her entire body twitched with excitement as she snuck into the warm, welcoming darkness. She wormed her way in between folds towards the warmest area. A foot. There was a foot in her warm nest. She sniffed it. It smelled kind of nice but not the right kind of nice. She licked a toe tentatively. Not bad. If it would kindly move a bit she'd be able to lie in the warm spot. She bit it for good measure.

Jareth, King of the Goblins, Lord of the Labyrinth, and a handful of other impressive titles, made a most inelegant exit from bed when something bit his royal toe. With a yelp he held his injured foot in one hand whilst balancing on the other leg and looking around for his unseen assaulter. The bedroom was empty as it should be. There was definitely no goblin sitting in the foot end and if there had been, it would probably have been hiding under the bed by now anyhow. He glanced down – no goblins under the bed, either. With a grunt he yanked the satin duvet off the bed, seeking to expose the enemy. Two needlepoint eyes in a roguish furry face peered up at him with a very dignified expression of dismay.

He squatted down and looked at the creature. It seemed to be some kind of weasel. It also seemed quite tame, unrepentant for the random toe assault, and quite miffed that he had removed its protection from the chill of the morning. "Well," he murmured. "It's my bed. Now where did you come from, little one?"

The ferret rolled up on its back, curling back around itself so that it adroitly was using its own abdomen as a headrest and then folded its tail over its ears.

"Why, I do believe you just told me to shut up," he said good-naturedly. "I suppose you'll want the duvet back too?"

The Goblin King obliged and tucked the little creature in. It seemed completely at ease, if not right out indifferent to his touch. In fact, it ignored him to the point of being rude. He laid down again, careful not to disturb his new bedmate, and summoned another duvet with a snap of two slender fingers. "I think, my dear, that I shall call you... Princess."

* * * *

"Hoo boy. That's some seriously repressed sexuality you got here, Sarah."

"Wossit?"

Amanda grinned and showed her the page of the old sketchbook she was currently viewing. The page was filled with a drawing that showed traces of insecurity about perspective as well as the immense, focused care to detail of an obsessed sixteen-year-old. It depicted a man in full figure (with a small bookcase in front, feet are so hard to draw) wearing a foot-long black cape, posing arrogantly with his hands on his slender hips (and a bouquet of roses on the table concealed most of one hand because, dammit, it had just been so hard to get to match the first). He had a riding crop tucked into one tall boot, his white ruffled shirt revealed quite a bit of toned chest, and the black tights were entirely, entirely too tight. Blue eyes peered out under arched eyebrows and a quite fantastic mop of unruly golden hair while a smirk danced on thin lips.

Sarah blushed crimson. "That's just an old thing," she said with assumed indifference. "Must be ages."

Amanda snickered and studied the drawing in close detail, paying attention to certain details with shameless amusement. "Man, that's gotta hurt when he walks. How old were you when you drew this, fifteen?"

Sarah went from crimson to deep vermilion. "Sixteen, whatever. You were looking for a fairy, remember? I think that's a little big."

"Sure is," Amanda winked, ignoring her friend and co-worker's groan. "So who's Prince Charming? Some singer?"

"I don't even remember, I had a new crush every other week," Sarah lied. "Were you going to look at the fairy designs I made?"

"Yeah, yeah." Amanda closed the sketchbook. "Seriously though, you should totally redo that and send it in. It'd make an awesome vampire."

Sarah nibbled on her pencil's end. "Vampire?"

The other woman nodded, red bangs bobbing. "Yep. Hot, nocturnal, sparkly. Twilight, eighties style. Get the twihards -and- their moms. Anyhow, can I borrow that fairy book? I'll see what I can make out, it's getting really late." She reached for her handbag.

Sarah let Amanda out of the apartment and poured herself another mug of coffee before settling down at the desk again. The pile of sketchbooks was pretty huge – but of course Amanda had to pick out -that- old book, and open it on -that- old page. She sipped, cursed about nearly scalding her tongue, and opened her laptop's lid. Wouldn't hurt to take a look at sparkly vampires for inspiration.

* * * *

"These are great," Will announced, and pointed at the spreadsheets of fairy designs. "Feminine, cute, sexy but still pee gee thirteen. We'll definitely do a calendar with them. The poster, though, I'm not sure about."

"Too dark?" Sarah asked. "She knew that having the dark cloak fading in with the dark background had been cheating but it had been getting really late.

Her art director shook his head. "No, that's fine. Dark and gloomy and sensual is good. But the hair is way too Twisted Sister and the make-up screams glam rocker, not vampire. Even if," he grinned, "you gave him Robert Pattinson's eyes and trademark pout. The Vampire Lestat in concert outfit works great, though."

Sarah blinked. "What pout?"

"If you crop the hair and lose some of the make-up it'll be perfect for a poster," Will said sympathetically. Being a digital painter too, he knew how much pain it often was, going back to edit a finished painting.

Sarah peered at the poster. The Goblin King, enhanced by the magic of PhotoShop and her tablet, looked back at her, with the brown doe eyes and little girl pout that could send a certain kind of teenage girl into a merchandise shopping frenzy. "God," she said. "I must have been sleep working. I am definitely editing that."

"Haircut, maybe a smile," the art director agreed. "Now, I like the autumn theme on this group here, but I was thinking maybe toss in some more leaves. Give you an excuse to flex that shades of red and yellow muscle – "

She nodded in the appropriate places during the rest of the conversation but if anyone had asked her what Will had been saying afterwards she would have had to confess that she had no idea what he had said. Her eyes kept straying back to that pout and those big, wet, brown puppy eyes. She was still thinking of them an hour later as she dodged through traffic and she was muttering about twihards and sparkly stalkers when she stomped up the stairs to her apartment and she was definitely ready to strangle any unfortunate fairies in her path when she had fed Bikkit the ferret and flopped down on her chair in front of the desk with coffee and a bagel.

"This didn't happen," she muttered while chewing. "I'm personally going to reorder time with a sledgehammer if I have to, that did -not- happen." She had gone from sledgehammer through a series of hardware upgrades that culminated with artillery shells at the time her kid brother turned up, letting himself into the apartment with the key he'd nicked from her months ago.

"Someone steal your lunch money, sis?" The youth grinned and threw his coat on a chair. "I haven't seen you this ready to kill somebody since last time you got a ticket for speeding."

"I made a terrible drawing," Sarah grumped. "Bad. Monstrous. Gruesome. Horrid."

"Will turned down one of your fairies?" He looked surprised.

Sarah shot him a gloomy look.

"Will turned down all of your fairies?

A gloomier look.

He threw his hands up."Will cut out every single fairy, glued them to cardboard and turned them into office dartboards?"

Sarah groaned.

"I'm putting more coffee on. I'll use it to bargain for my life." He poured water on the espresso maker. "Okay, a goblin ate your fairies. And your tablet. And your laptop. And your driver's license. Have you checked on Bikkit lately?"

"Toby, stop being a smart ass and get over here."

"I prefer being a live smart ass over here." He walked back to the desk anyhow. "Okay, what is it?"

Sarah opened the folder and pulled out the poster print depicting the disaster. "That."

The youth's eyes widened. "Holy shit. You drew that?"

"It's based off an old thing I did in '87. I was out of ideas and Amanda liked it."

"Yeah, but the face is totally wrong."

Sarah groaned. "Yes. But it was right when I saved it last night."

Toby took another look. "He looks like friggin' Edward Cullen. Are you going to use this print for anything?"

Sarah peered at him. "It's -wrong-."

"Yeah, well, I figured Hoggle might get a laugh out of it." The youth walked back to the kitchen counter and poured the espresso. Holding one mug out he proclaimed, "Peace offering! No hurting the kid brother!"

She could not help giggling. "I'm not going to hurt you, you twit. I'm pretty sure you're not responsible for this – disaster."

"So I can have it?"

"No. I'm killing it dead, with scissors." She clicked on the keyboard of her laptop and pulled up the PhotoShop document. "This is what it's supposed to look like." The face on the monitor looked nothing like a Twilight character. It looked cold, arrogant, preening, and, well, right.

"Yeah, I figured," Toby grinned. "His Tightness doing Edward Cullen, that's a riot."

Sarah spluttered. "What did you say?"

"His Tightness. You know, His Royal Glitterness. The King." Toby pulled out the same old sketchbook that Amanda had been going through the previous day. "You got a whole book of drawings of him, remember? I know what he looks like. And if I should ever forget I have Hoggle reminding me often enough."

She smiled. "I'm glad he's still looking after you, though." She sighed at the laptop monitor. "He does look kind of funny and eighties, I guess. But he's still very dangerous."

"I know, I know. Never go through the mirror, never pick up any crystal balls, never say 'I wish', stay on the path, look before you cross the road, brush your teeth before you go to bed, and chew your food thirty-five times."

"Toby."

He rolled his eyes. "I'm not twelve, Sarah. I know the rules. Believe me, the worst thing that ever happened to me was Ludo beating me at Scrabble and that damn goblin who keeps stealing my socks. Please, not another sermon. I'm not hearing you, I hear nothing – nothing, tra la la." He clasped his hands over his ears.

"What did you just say?" Sarah put her mug down.

He ventured a sidewards glance. "No sermon?"

"After that."

"I can't hear you, na na na na?"

"Yeah. That."

Toby took his hands down. "I was just trying to be funny. Are you going to print another copy of that?" He pointed at the monitor.

Sarah replied, "Maybe. Might just do something else entirely. I think I will."

* * * *


	2. Goblins, Goblins, Goblins

The King was in a good mood that evening. He sprawled on his throne but instead of tapping a riding crop against one boot in frustration as he was prone to do quite often he was playing with a small, bitey bunch of fur that nipped happily at his gloves and tried to wrestle his thumb into submission in between trying to yank his triangular pendant off its chain on his chest. Princess was of course enjoying the affection to the fullest; she clearly loved the attention she was getting. A handful of goblins sat and stood around the throne, peering and giggling at the ferret's antics. The mood was lighter than usual and while the goblins were not as such prone to doing deep psychological studies they knew quite well that king in good mood equals an absence of various unpleasantnesses such as being kicked across the room, turned into a frog, or tossed into an oubliette for a week or six.

"Where do you think this little gem has come from, Octavius?" Jareth's voice was amused, probably because at the time of his question, Princess' incisors were firmly buried in the wrist of aforementioned goblin.

"A closet," the goblin offered while trying to shake the creature off. He succeeded and the ferret scampered up to sit on the King's shoulder, triumphant.

"I wonder what ferrets eat," Jareth mused. "Rats?"

"Chickens." Several goblins looked hopeful.

"Mice."

"Socks."

"Kitty food." Octavius turned his worn baseball cap around on his head as quite a lot of eyes turned his way, including a pair of mismatched ones. "Well, they do. I seen it."

"Do they now? Well, Octavius," the King gracefully decreed, "then you shall simply have to go find some of that. We can't quite leave Princess to go hungry, can we?"

* * * *

Amanda dutifully returned the fairy sketchbook first thing on their lunch break. "I think I'm going to go with one of the small butterfly fairies," she informed her friend while picking at her pasta salad. "I kind of like the way they look so adorably cute until you look at their faces and they have this really wicked expression like they're waiting for you to hold out a finger for them to bite."

Sarah grinned. "I'm not good at cute fairies. They always seemed kind of vicious to me."

"Your art has always had a bite," Amanda agreed. "Speaking of which, did you get a chance to rework Sparkly McTightpants?"

"I don't think I want to. I'm a little too fond of the original, I guess."

Amanda speared a bit of tuna on her fork. "Don't blame you, the old sketch wasn't up to par with what you do these days but it had a lot more life. Why aren't you eating? Something wrong with the salad?"

Sarah shook her head. "I'm just thinking. I have a lot on my mind today."

"Man trouble?"

"Do I look like I have man trouble to you?"

"Oh hell yes." Amanda grinned.

Sarah nibbled at the pasta a moment. "Well, kind of. It's not man trouble exactly but there is a guy and there is trouble."

"Dear Amanda, last night I met a man and now I'm in trouble," her friend droned, giving a half decent impersonation of a newspaper agony aunt.

Sarah laughed. "Yeah well. He's an old – acquaintance. Not a friend as such. I never really knew him but the one time we did get together we clashed majorly. I don't trust him. And I think my brother's been spending time with him without me knowing about it."

"Psch, old boyfriends can be a pain in the backside," Amanda agreed.

"Oh, nothing like that. Mind you, I'd totally have been into the idea if I had been legal. He was older than me but damn, he was sizzling. He was also an egotistical, arrogant control freak who thought entirely too much of himself."

"Story of my life," Amanda speared another piece. "Men are like public rest rooms, the good ones are taken and the bad ones are full of crap. So what's this guy got to do with Toby – oh, I got it, he's a teacher?"

Sarah laughed. "In a way. I'm just worried whether he's a bad influence. On the other hand, Toby says they've known each other for years and well, Toby hasn't exactly turned out a juvenile delinquent."

"Unless this guy's secretly a gay stalker of his students I don't see the problem," Amanda observed. "Invite him out, have dinner, get to know him. Just because someone was an ass twenty years ago doesn't mean they still are and besides, you were probably a little bitch back then anyhow. I know I was and I think I was a pretty ordinary kid."

Amanda kept chatting about her teenage years, and the various boyfriends, stupidities, and rows with parents that earned her brat points at the time. Sarah managed to make a few appropriate nods, giggles, and conspiratorial winks, but truth to tell she was no longer paying attention. Ask the guy out to dinner, get to know him. Yeah, that would go over well. She could take the Goblin King out for Thai and after that, maybe World War Three for fun and giggles. For a nightcap she could always find some fire escape to stand on while shouting 'You have no power over me'.

* * * *

That evening Sarah baked. She used pre made cookie dough and banned Bikkit from the kitchen until the cookies were safely in the oven. When they were done she put the finished, warm, delicious smelling cookies on the kitchen counter, turned her back to them, and counted to ten. Unsurprisingly, half the cookies were in the process of being gobbled up by small, odd looking figures and one ferret when she turned around again and shouted, "Ha!"

Seven pairs of eyes stared at her with varying degrees of innocence. She put her hands on her hips. "Hello, boys. And Anastasia," she amended.

Anastasia fluttered her eyelashes over her pig snout. Muffle hugged Bikkit. "Hello, Sarah!" they chorused shrilly.

"So, who wants to play a quiz game?"

"Me! Me! Pick me!" Hopscotch, true to the name she had given him, was jumping up and down.

Sarah grinned. "Tonight we're gonna play a new game I came up with. If you all play really well I got presents for you when we're done."

Five little goblin faces went ooh. One went grmph, rather than ooh, but then, that's why they called him Badger in the first place.

"Okay," Sarah laughed. "Badger, Anastasia, and Octavius, you're a team. Muffle, Hopscotch, and Elmo, you're the other team. You take turns answering my questions and I'll judge which team is best. You get extra points for speaking in character."

The goblins scurried around – and made a few more cookies disappear in the process – until they were seated in two groups. "I want to go first!" Hopscotch shouted.

She sat cross-legged on the floor between them and Bikkit scampered up her shoulder. "Okay, Badger's team plays for the Labyrinth and Muffle's team plays for Aboveground, got it?" Six heads bobbed up and down. "Okay, Hopscotch, you can go first. You have to walk like Rob."

The gnarled little face twisted as the goblin thought of Sarah's ex-husband. Then he hopped up and started pacing up and down the kitchen floor with his arms behind his back, looking for all the world like someone deep in thought. She could not help snickering. The little creature had Rob's mannerisms down pretty pat.

She clapped her hands and the five others followed suit, Team Underground less enthusiastically than Team Aboveground. "One point for Hopscotch," she announced. "Now Badger has to do Hoggle!"

The somewhat chubby and remarkably bearded goblin stood with a grunt. Then he began to crouch until his backside stood out prominently and scuttled around, muttering. The impersonation was quite spot on the little man's habit of, well, scuttling and muttering to himself.

"One point for the Underground," Sarah announced cheerfully, causing another round of applause. "Anastasia, you get to do me now."

The girl goblin beamed and tossed her flaxen curls. She put one clawed hand theatrically on her chest and the other on her brow and began to run up and down the kitchen floor. "It's not fair! It's not faaaaaair!"

Sarah spluttered. "I don't whine like that!"

Six merciless snickers told her otherwise. "Okay," she ceded the point. "But then Muffle has to do the king."

The rotund little creature fluffed up his huge squirrel tail and stuck his chest out. Walking on the tips of his claws he strutted across the kitchen floor showing off everything he had in a way that made Anastasia snicker, Badger roll his eyes, and Sarah try very hard not to choke. Muffle spun around on imaginary heels and glowered. Five goblins promptly fell silent, getting into the game. Muffle swaggered and threw an arrogant glance across his shoulder and tail, and then raised his front paws in an impatient gesture. On cue, the other five cheered and laughed.

She hugged the fur ball. "Muffle, I love you. Octavius, you get to do Toby now."

Muffle sat back down and pulled Bikkit close to him, an action the ferret didn't particularly object to. Octavius turned his baseball cap around so that it was backwards on his head. Leaning against the wall he raised one furry leg against it so that he reclined with arms crossed over his chest. His beady eyes slyly followed something non-existent walking past him, and he let out a low wolf whistle that made promises that Sarah found vaguely disturbing. "Toby does that a lot?"

Six heads bobbed. "Girls think it's cute," Octavius confided.

"I'm starting to worry about Toby's choice of male role model," Sarah muttered. "Okay, Elmo, you get to do – aw, don't look like that, Elmo, it's just a game."

The lanky goblin was blushing crimson and trying to hide behind Badger, shaking his purple mane. "Are you sure?" Sarah asked. The goblin nodded, a lot. "Well, okay, then. But that means Team Underground is behind one point so we have to do another round!"

Six heads bobbed; Elmo looked relieved.

* * * *

Team Underground had won, largely due to Muffle's ability to render very accurate parodies of just about anyone native to the Labyrinth that Sarah had been able to name. The furry little goblin did not talk insofar as she knew of but it was remarkably observant for its species. She had handed out prizes, letting the gang choose between plastic hair clips, paper flowers, and glittery stickers as they preferred; Hopscotch had been parading around with a sparkly Bratz fake tattoo on one shoulder. The remaining cookies had disappeared, Bikkit was asleep under the sofa, no doubt hoarding her stash, and now only Anastasia remained, dangling her hairy feet from where she sat on the kitchen counter. Sarah usually tried hard not to play favourites but if pressed she had to admit that the pig-faced girl goblin was one of her favourites, and a little smarter than most of her male companions.

"That was fun, Sarah!"

Sarah settled on the opposite kitchen counter with a mug of coffee. "Yep. And Muffle is awesome."

"Much better as the King than as a cannonball," Anastasia nodded happily.

Sarah smirked. "I doubt that His Majesty would agree."

Anastasia winked conspiratorially; some things were probably best not mentioned back home. Sarah had never quite managed to establish what exactly the relationship was between the goblins and their king; sometimes they seemed to fear him, sometimes to hero worship him, and most of the time they appeared to pretty much ignore that he existed, much like children out of their parents' range of vision.

"Anastasia, there's something I need to ask you about," Sarah admitted. "Something that has to stay just between you and me."

The goblin girl fingered a lock of her unruly hair. "Is it another Rob, Sarah?"

Sarah blinked. "Er. No. No Rob." For a moment she saw herself asking date advice of a goblin. The vision was fairly terrifying, although if it had to be, Anastasia would be far from the worst choice. "It's about Toby."

"Okay!"

"Remember back when I was in the Labyrinth? Toby was with you guys in the castle. Anastasia, what would have happened if I hadn't won?"

The goblin peered at her. "Not s'posed to talk about that, Sarah," she admonished.

Sarah sipped her coffee to keep calm. "Please, Anastasia. I think that the King and Toby have been talking. I really need to know if Toby is in danger now."

Anastasia peered again. "Oh. Nah. Not s'posed to talk about it."

She sighed. "All right. Fine. How is he, anyway?"

The goblin giggled. "Happy. Plays with the princess a lot."

Sarah realised that that was not the answer she had been looking for at all. "Oh, that's nice," she murmured.

Anastasia beamed. "Yeah. He's so much nicer when he's happy. She makes the bedroom a mess, though."

Sarah stood. "Okay, I think that's a little more information than I needed."

* * * *

She called Toby that night after she had changed into pyjamas and curled up on her bed, her apartment free of otherworldly infestation. She could tell that she had interrupted him in playing one of his online games because he sounded distant and distracted when he said, "Toby Williams."

"It's me, Toby. Got a few?"

"I'm kinda on a raid, Sarah."

"It won't take long," she promised. "I just have to ask you something."

There was the tell-tale pause in responding that told her that her brother was glued to his monitor, trying to keep up with what was going on in the game. "Right, right, Sis. Shoot."

"Toby, have you ever found out what the goblins really are?"

"What?"

"I'm trying to find out what it really is we've had coming and going for all this time, Toby. What are they? Fairies?"

"Beats me," he said distractedly. "Ask them?"

"I did. They said they're not allowed to talk about it."

"Well, ask him, then. Shit, hit it, hit it!" Frantic typing sounds ensued through the receiver.

"Toby."

"What?"

"I can't just ask him, Toby. We're not exactly on the best of terms, remember?"

Toby groaned. "Crap. Look, Leggylas just croaked. I got to pay attention to this. Just go and ask the guy already. What's he gonna do, glitter at you? I really gotta go."

"Okay. Okay. Night, then, and good luck raiding."

* * * *

Jareth sat upright with a start at the sound of ballroom music. He looked around; the bedroom was completely empty but for the small furry animal who had claimed the foot end. Familiar notes drifted as if carried on the night wind from afar. Then he laid back down and touched the ferret with one thumb. It moved slightly, twitching in a dream that no doubt involved the chase of something. "I envy you," he murmured to it as the dream began to take him. "Whatever you're dreaming it looks like a lot more fun."

* * * *

The kitchen raid went according to plan, more or less. Badger flat-out refused to don the black ninja outfit but the rest of them looked the part at least. Cuchullain and Muffle kept watch in the living room while Octavius carefully tiptoed into the kitchen and began rummaging around in the cabinets.

"Quiet!" Elmo hissed. "If she wakes up there'll be bog for the lot of us!"

"Am quiet," Octavius muttered. "Bean soup. Flour. Aha! Kitten food!" He flung the package out of the cabinet and Elmo deftly caught it.

"Octavius, there's a picture of a cat on this box."

"I know," the other goblin whispered back. "It's the right stuff. I seen her fill the princess' bowl."

"But it's not a cat."

"Maybe it's made from cats."

Elmo groaned. "Take one of the plastic boxes too. If we hand this over we'll be chasing cats next."

* * * *


	3. Do you like her dream?

Sarah curled up on the bed, hugging the pillow. When sleep came it took her to a glorious crystal ballroom where she chased an elusive cavalier through a crowd of decadent dancers. She had not had that dream in years, and when she realised that once again it was going to end with her smashing a chair through the window to break the illusion she groaned to herself. It always ended that way. She heard the clock strike, and pushed away from the dance, through the crowd that pressed her on all sides. Her knuckles whitened as her hands closed on the chair, lifting it from the floor and turning to face the great window – or was it the wall of a crystal with her trapped inside? She had never been quite certain.

Her reflection was so young, barely more than a child. Large green eyes stared back at her, wide in fear and disbelief, yet shimmering with the magic of the enchantment, sparkling like the pearls in her hair. This was the face of a girl who was entirely too young to be attending a ball like this, too young to understand the games played out between the courtiers. It was the face of a child who had realised that she was not supposed to be there and that time was running out.

"No," she murmured. "I already did this. It doesn't have to end this way."

A hand brushed over her shoulder, like the fluttering of a moth's wing. She let go of the chair and slowly turned around, drinking in the appearance of him; slightly unreal, the gentle wisps of white-tendriled fantasy removing any imperfection or flaw from her princess fantasy and its king.

His lips moved. She could not hear the words but his expression was questioning.

"Why, yes, Majesty, I'd love another dance," she replied cheerfully and held out her arms to slip into his embrace. It was just a dream and she was just fifteen. Too young to club him over the head with the chair and drag him in under one of those buffet tables caveman style, but she'd take what she could get.

* * * *

That morning Sarah called in sick. Will was not thrilled about that but he agreed that you can't quite argue with the flu and besides, it would be pointless to have her come in and pass it on to every other artist in the studio. He made her promise to eat her own weight in chicken broth, drink cranberry juice, and get better. And if she did get better, he added as an option, he wouldn't mind if she found the energy to do some sketch work for that vampire poster. She made tea and huddled up at her work table in a blanket, turning the laptop on. What a night. What. A. Night. She definitely needed to sort her head out.

As a girl Sarah had kept a diary the contents of which made her adult toes curl. It had been a pretty pink thing with a little lock on it and she had filled the pages with small tidbits about things that happened in school, movies she had watched, books she had read, rants about her parents – all three of them – and drawings of princesses and ponies. Later on, the diary had become a journal kept in a binder and the ponies had given way to drawings of goblins and their antics. These days it was a dated directory of OpenOffice documents and scanned sketches.

She hit Google, copying in the useful tidbits to a new document. When the doorbell rang hours later, she was still engrossed in stories of girls who passed photographs of paper fairies off as the real thing, fairies who exchanged their own dark and ugly children for golden haired human babies, speculations of ultraterrestrials once appearing as fairies, now as aliens, to oversee the development of humanity, tales of Irish fae royalty, angels falling from Heaven to become fairies, fairies being local gods dwindling in power as their believers died out, as well as a number of blog entries condemning the Disneyficiation of fairies to sell pink glitter princess fantasies to young girls. In other words, nothing she had not read before.

Sarah padded out to answer the door, still in pyjamas, blanket, and giant fuzzy Tigger slippers. Amanda took one look at her as the door opened and burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" Sarah grumped.

"You are," her friend grinned and swept into the apartment. "Will asked me to drop off the prints for the fairy calendars so you can see what kind of space you'' get to work with. Spare a cup of tea for a friendly co-worker?"

"Help yourself. I'm sick, that gets me out of playing hostess." Sarah curled up on her chair again.

Amanda knew her way around Sarah's kitchen well enough and grabbed a mug from a kitchen cabinet before sitting down. She glanced at the monitor on which was a Wordpress journal with a particularly glittery picture of Tinkerbell. It was animated so that the little wings flapped. "Urgh?" she said, pointing at it.

"Just keeping an eye on the competition."

"Yeah, well, don't go there," her friend advised. "That's wrong on so many levels I can't even count them. What are you working on?"

Sarah refilled her own mug. "I'm not, really. I just had the most screwed up dream last night and I'm kind of trying to sort my head out."

"Ooh," Amanda perked up. "Head sorting. We loves it, my precioussss."

Sarah giggled. "Okay, okay. It's a dream I've had many times. I'm in a ballroom and there's a masquerade going on. It's a Venetian kind of thing, you know? Very 18th century and everything is very pretty but at the same time there's also this air of decadence. I don't really see any details but you can tell there's all sorts of things going on in the shadows. But here's the kicker: I'm only fifteen years old and I shouldn't be there at all."

Amanda sipped. "Mmm, sounds like fun, though. Is there a prince to go with it?"

A faint blush crept across Sarah's cheeks. "Oh yes. Well, he's not a prince exactly, but he's definitely there and I have to run around looking for him until I find him and we dance."

"And at midnight you run away and lose a shoe?"

"Actually, no. I pick up a chair and smash it through a window and then I fall into a junk pile."

"That's.... anti-climactic."

"Tell me about it," Sarah agreed. "Anyhow, that's how the dream is supposed to go. When I had it last night though I didn't smash the window. I turned around and we kept right on dancing until I woke up."

Amanda tilted her head. "You say that like it's a bad thing. Hot prince action isn't a bad thing in my book."

"I'm fifteen in the dream, you dork."

"Whatever." Amanda turned the mug in her hand. "So what does it mean?"

"What do you mean, what does it mean?"

"Well, if it's got you calling in sick and spending all day with your nose in Google I figure it means more than oh hey, Sarah wouldn't mind auditioning for the female lead in the adult version of Cinderella. Maybe it means something has changed. Maybe now you're ready to... dance."

"Spare me, Lucy van Pelt." Sarah snickered. "It's the guy in the dream I'm interested in. I'm trying to find out what he's supposed to be. Feel free to go amateur shrink on him if you like."

"Sure. What do we know about him? He's a prince. He's good looking. He likes to dance. He probably collects abandoned glass shoes."

Sarah leaned back on her chair. "He's an older man. Well, older than a Disney prince, I mean. He's about my age, late thirties, like, and he's dangerous. He's kind of fairy-like, not really human. Timeless. He can make your dreams come true but he can also turn your life into a living hell. He's the kind of guy – well, if he was Eve, he'd eat the apple and throw himself on Adam."

"Mmm, a bad boy." Amanda smirked. "I bet you wish you could tame that bad boy. Or maybe not. I hate the stories where the bad boy turns into the girl's lapdog."

"I don't think he can be tamed. He's like a fairy from a really old legend. He's like a force of nature. Sometimes he's generous, sometimes he's cruel, and there doesn't really have to be a reason for either."

"Like Sparkly McTightpants?"

Sarah blinked. "Yeah, well, I've been having that dream for a long time. Hell, Rob used to call it unfair competition."

Amanda giggled. "Poor Rob. But okay, let me go all shrink for your amusement. You've met someone who reminds you of your brat fairy teenage crush and now you're all curious about what's going on in those dark corners of the ballroom and whether he'd like to play along." She waggled a finger at Sarah. "You're a very naughty little girl, Sarah Williams. You were telling me it was Toby you were worried about the other day when you were really thinking about this guy in a Venetian waistcoat."

Sarah blushed crimson and raised her hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. Yes. It's true."

Her friend's smugness could have matched that of any fairytale king. "Well, then my advice stands. Invite the guy over and find out how deep that bad boy streak runs. Don't forget to ask if he's got any handsome and lonely bad boy buddies for little old me. I'll take anything that could have walked out of Lost Boys, just to stay in theme."

* * * *

Lounging in one of the windows that overlooked the Labyrinth the King would occasionally throw a glance back at the ever-present goblin entourage, smirk, and then go back to looking at whatever he was looking at. His subjects knew well the dangers associated with brooding or sulking kings, but the little smile that kept dancing on his thin lips was not malicious. The King was amused.

A gloved hand whipped out and grabbed one goblin by the scruff of the neck, lifting it up to face level. "And what do you think you are doing, Truff?"

The goblin squirmed and tried to swallow, fast. "I's eating," it squeaked.

"You are eating Princess' food again, aren't you?"

"It's so tasty," the goblin defended itself. "It don't taste like cat none at all."

Jareth laughed and released the creature who landed on the stone floor with a little thud and scampered away. He glanced at Muffle, currently doing a quite convincing impersonation of a ferret curled up in sleep, and laughed again, before his pale eyes came to rest on the pig-faced, tow-headed Anastasia. "Come here," he said, patting his knee.

The goblin obediently hopped up and came to sit on one leather-clad knee. She wore a plastic hair clip, he noticed; it became her in an odd way. "Tell me, Anastasia, do you like being a goblin?"

The girl peered at her king oddly. "Please don't frog me, Sire."

Jareth laughed again and picked the clip from the yellow hair. "Where did you steal this, I wonder. From a girl, perhaps? A girl who is not -ordinary-?"

Anastasia blushed and nodded. "Was a present."

He brushed her curls back and put the clip in her hair properly. "You like her, hmm? Do you like her dream? You could be so much more."

The goblin shook her head. "I'm happy being a goblin, Sire."

* * * *

Sarah peered into the kitchen cabinet and then grabbed Bikkit before she could scamper in to investigate. "Oh, no, you don't," she admonished the not very guilty looking ferret. "It's bad enough that you steal socks, erasers, and anything else that isn't nailed down. Sometimes I swear, I think you're part goblin. Now where the heck is your food." The ferret squirmed to be let down and Sarah offered it a dog biscuit to distract it from the open kitchen cabinet.

Bikkit grabbed it quickly and squirmed harder until released. Then she took off like greased lightning to hide her treat under the sofa for later consumption and or hoarding. "And that, my dear, is why you only get dry food," Sarah called after her, laughing.

She rummaged. Figured that the goblins had gotten into the cabinets again. This time, it would appear, they had swiped several cans of soup, a box of bread sticks, and, inexplicably, the high protein kitten food that Bikkit ate. She would have to go grocery shopping in the morning. Sarah walked into her bedroom where Bikkit's cage was open as usual; the ferret hated being boxed up so she usually only was when Sarah was cleaning or had visitors with fur allergies.

Oh, the food bowl was almost full. Good, good. She checked the water bottle too and changed the t-shirt that Bikkit used for a nest to a clean one. Bikkit promptly tried to make off with the old one, dragging it after her as she backed towards the wardrobe.

"Absolutely not!" Sarah pursued the ferret. "You're not hiding that dirty thing with my shoes, you little monster!"

Bikkit did a triple eight backwards dance of defiance. Being a ferret she was not gifted with much in the terms of verbal communication but the little dook-dooks she spat out in between sproings were clearly an invitation to a chase that would then end in a wrestling match, maybe even a tickle fight. She even looked over her shoulder to make sure Sarah saw where she went as she dragged the t-shirt into the wardrobe.

"Oh, you're so dead," Sarah laughed and held on to the other end of the smelly shirt. She pulled at it, expecting a ferret to come sliding out amidst various shoes, refusing to let go. Surprisingly the shirt came out on its own, accompanied only by one sandal.

"Bikkit! Come out and take your punishment like a weasel!" She peered into the wardrobe. A little scratching sound, and a sable tail tip disappearing into the back. Sarah grabbed for it – and was less surprised that she missed than at the fact that her hand continued -through- the wall of the wardrobe as if it was simply some kind of illusion.

She sat back a moment. "So -that's- how they get in. Bikkit!"

Not a sound ensued from the wardrobe. Sarah sighed. Trust a ferret to find anything you wouldn't want a ferret to find. She got back on her feet, swearing. Way too soon. Forever would be way too soon.

Damnit. Sarah crossed the bedroom and sat down on the edge of her bed in front of the mirror. It was a fairly large oval wall mirror that allowed her to view herself in full figure without taking on certain suggestive airs that might be associated with, say, a wall-sized mirror. She tapped it. "Hoggle?"

Magic touch, I has it, Sarah thought with a smirk as the surface of the mirror became foggy and then began to swirl, not unlike the surface of a pond after you toss a pebble into it. The fog lifted and became a window into a garden of hedges that wound in every direction between flower beds and the occasional decorative urn. With a gliding motion not unlike a camera zoom the view tore towards the edge of the Labyrinth, settling eventually on bushes that hugged its austere walls from the outside. A small figure sat on a rock with a fishing rod in one hand and a bottle next to him, a straw hat shading his eyes. He looked around himself suspiciously and then looked up. "Whatcha want?"

Sarah smiled. "I need to talk, Hoggle."

"Been long enough," he grumped, not getting up. "You're in the wrong place."

"Yeah, I'm in my apartment. Sorry, I know you hate it when I use the wrong mirror," she apologised. "I can't risk any of the goblins finding out and you know how it is back at my parents' place."

The dwarf threw a suspicious glance upwards. "Whatever it is, I ain't done it."

"Nope, Toby did."

Another suspicious look. "Toby?"

"Afraid so. I'm not really sure how to deal with this, Hoggle. That's why I need your advice."

"Well, what's he gone and done, then?" Despite his gruff demeanour, Hoggle cared quite a bit for her brother.

Sarah rubbed her temple. "He's said things when he wasn't paying attention. Nothing direct, mind you, but little things. I think he's been talking to... him."

The dwarf froze, and then unfroze to look around as if expecting someone to pop out of nowhere next to him at any second. "Oh, bugger." He paused, a suspicious look creeping across his face. "No way, Sarah. I ain't goin' in there again. Toby's a big boy, he can get himself out."

She shook her head. "No, no, it's not -that- bad. Thank god. But I need to know some things and none of the goblins are talking about those things."

Hoggle frowned. "So you want to know what His Royal Arsepain is up to, huh. Like he'd tell -me-."

"Yeah, I know, the two of you aren't exactly best friends."

"That's a bloody understatement. And I ain't goin' in there to ask him nothin' so don't bother tryin' to make me." He thumped the fishing rod against the ground decisively.

"No," Sarah agreed. "This is something I have to sort out myself. I just need some information."

The dwarf shot her a glower that could wither a fairy. "You're thinkin' of going back in," he accused. "You're out of your mind, you silly slip of a girl."

"Actually I was thinking of something you said before I even got into the Labyrinth. You said that if I ever got to the centre, I'd never find my way back out. What did you mean by that?"

"Huh. I were just tryin' to get you to go away. Not like you listened to me anyway. Not like you're gonna listen now." He threw the rod down and put his hands on his hips in a gesture that reminded her of someone else, not that she was going to point that out. "You go tell Toby to stay the hell away from His Sparkliness if he knows what's good for him, that's what you do. And then you go and forget everything about this place 'cause it ain't good for either of you. That's what I'm sayin'."

"Hoggle," she asked. "You're not really a goblin, are you?"

He stared. "Do I look like a bloody goblin to you?"

Sarah laughed. "No, you don't. You look like – a lovable old grump. I love you, Hoggle."

He hrmphed. "Well, that's better. Now go do something useful with your life. Goodbye, Sarah."

The mirror fogged over again before taking on its usual appearance, reflecting her face back at her. "You look like a False Alarm, Hoggle," Sarah murmured.

* * * *

Toby lounged on his bed. As if in an attempt to defy gravity his feet were up the wall and his back and shoulders the wrong way, a number of textbooks spread out in front of his face on the pillow. He was bobbing his head ever so slightly to the rhythms from his earphones, occasionally humming along with a phrase or particularly good riff. He had a yellow marker pen in one hand and every so often he would underline something on the page he was reading. In his concentration and self-induced indie rock trance he was completely unaware that he was being watched.

Jareth was careful to not attract the youth's attention with a sudden movement as he glanced at Toby's desk, a veritable mountain of books, notes, and game manuals. He tiptoed across the room, keeping to the shadows easily, and flicked the computer mouse lightly with one leather-clad finger. The monitor on Toby's computer had been showing a slide show of scantily clad, pointy-eared women and huge, burly creatures with armour and weaponry that defied just about every law of physics in existence; at the touch it went back to showing the desktop, and on it, the chat windows that the boy had left open.

"Leggylas said: you up for questing tonight? lots of love lol"

The King's lips formed the words silently. "I don't think so," he murmured and tapped the laptop once, twice with the tip of his riding crop. Then, leaving only a faint trail of sparkling, silvery moonlight behind, he was gone as silently as he had come.

* * * *


	4. They're related to weasels, you say?

Wind breaker, because those endless paths that made up the majority of the Labyrinth were both winding -and- windy. Sneakers, so she could run, check. Chocolate bars, because she might get hungry or, more likely, run into goblins requiring bribes to keep quiet, check. Dog biscuits, to lure ferrets within grabbing distance, check. "Here goes," Sarah muttered and got down on all fours, facing her wardrobe.

The back end of her wardrobe looked unsurprisingly solid but sure enough, when she closed her eyes and just crawled forward, she did not crawl into the wall. Or rather, she did, literally. When Sarah opened her eyes again she found herself enshrouded in a kind of misty darkness with no real indication of what was up or down, left or right. She glanced over her shoulder – the light of her bedroom lamp shone dully through wisps of fog. It looked distant, even a little unreal. She looked ahead again. Another light shone faintly through the mist. "That had better be a way out of here," she muttered to herself. Then her eye was caught by, of all things unexpected, a small pile of dog biscuits, half-heartedly covered with a single tennis sock that had once been white. "The dragon's hoard," she murmured. "Bikkit, when I find you I'm gonna make you wear a freaking collar with a -bell- on it."

The light ahead grew stronger as she crawled towards it, taking on a rusty, sandy colour that Sarah associated with the memories of sandstone walls and dramatically wind torn sunsets of that other world. She counted to ten under her breath and then crawled into the light.

Of all the places Sarah had feared that she might end up, this was not it. She could have stumbled in through the wall to find herself in an oubliette; fallen out of a tree amidst a gang of dancing fireys; crawled out from under the throne; or even tumbled from above head first into the Bog. All of these would have been bad. Finding herself in a broom closet was quite tame in comparison with some of the scenarios her imagination had offered up, but also quite a lot more comfortable, all things considered. Not quite the return to the Underground that her sense of drama craved, perhaps, but at least cleaning utensils were not prone to try to take her head off.

Sarah scrabbled to her feet and out of the closet. She was in a hallway with a sandstone floor and several heavy oaken doors, illuminated with a strange twilight that seeped in from small windows along the walls. The castle, she reasoned, but not somewhere she had seen on her previous visit all those years ago. She dusted her jeans off and walked over to steal a glance through one of the windows. The goblin city spread out below, looking every bit as chaotic as she remembered; several large rocks still lay around inexplicably; no one had thought to remove them or they had not felt like being removed, she figured. She was too high up to hear the noise from down there as the natives went about their usual chaotic business. Her inner artist cursed at her for not bringing a camera or a sketchpad.

"Hello!"

Sarah looked down on the window sill, not really being all that surprised at seeing a small, red worm with a fuzzy mane looking up at her curiously. "Did you just say 'ello?"

"No, I said 'hello', but that's close enough."

She chuckled. "Let me guess. You guys greet visitors."

The worm beamed. "It's a job, lady. Shouldn't you be out there?" It craned its neck at the window.

"Actually I'm just here to find my ferret. She ran off into my wardrobe and came out here, I suppose. You wouldn't happen to have noticed a small furry animal run by a few minutes back?"

"Cor, no, I'm just a worm, lady. Reckon you might ask some of the goblins about it, though."

Sarah nodded. "And I have to ask you for directions, right?"

"Well, reckon you don't -'ave- to but it sure would be nice of you to do it. It's my job and all."

She grinned at it. "Left or right, then? Which way leads to certain doom?"

The worm gave her an odd look inasmuch a small red worm could. "Don't know about that, lady, but if you go left you'll be going into 'Is Majesty's private rooms."

"Definitely going right this time too, then. Thanks!"

"My pleasure! 'Ave a nice day!" The red-maned worm watched the woman trot away before sighing to itself. "I'm still saying she should be out -there-."

* * * *

At the tender age of fifteen Sarah had run up the stairs to the Goblin Castle and, almost before she thought twice about it, she had burst into the throne room. She had raced up the stairs after ditching her friends and right into that crazy stair room where she had defeated the Goblin King. As she half walked, half ran down the long winded corridor now she was starting to realise just how unreal that had been. The place was -huge-. When she passed tall, arched windows she saw soaring spires and bridges interconnecting them, and steep drops to courtyards and private gardens far, far below. Buckingham Palace or even the Versailles had nothing on the castle beyond the Goblin City.

Sarah stopped flat and slapped her forehead. "Doh!"

The red worm had not told her, obviously, because she had been told already, twenty years ago, trapped between walls and running along a path of rotting vines and branches that seemed to go on forever in both directions. There were plenty of openings into the Labyrinth proper, she was just not seeing them. If things were still working that way...

She called Bikkit to her mind's eye. The small pink nose, the black eyes with a faint outline of dark blue, the white ears that looked a bit like the ears of a puppy just born. Her arched back and her movements, sometimes sproinging like a slinky, sometimes sneaking silently on the top of the paws like a furry snake in the grass. The white markings in her face that made her appear to be wearing a tiny little burglar's mask like a cartoon weasel, and her slightly spicy scent. "Where are you, Bikkit," she murmured and opened the nearest door.

Even with twenty years' time to think about her experiences and the lessons she had learned from them, Sarah had no real idea how the Underground worked, particularly when one was not a 'guest' of the realm's enigmatic king. She remembered the 'nothing is as it seems' verdict quite well. Even so, there were certain things one should feel relatively safe to expect to find in a large, medieval-ish castle. This room was not one of those things. It was in fact completely empty.

"You will not find anything in there," a voice commented.

She turned around and came knee to faces with a two-headed creature resembling most of all a garish blue German Shepherd dog, albeit with two heads. "You're not dreaming, after all," its other head noted.

"I'm supposed to be picking up my ferret," Sarah said. "Have you seen her? She looks kind of like a weasel or rat but with a furry tail and she's always investigating everything."

Two heads tilted quizzically, in separate directions. "You're not really supposed to be here, are you?" one asked. "Followed a goblin home?" the other inquired.

Sarah nodded. "Kind of. My ferret found some kind of portal or gateway of the goblins', and I followed her here. My name is Sarah. I really don't want to be a problem, I just want to find Bikkit and get out of here."

"She can see the goblins," one head informed the other.

"Must have been here before," the other nodded. "I'm Pish. He's Tosh. Nice to meet you, Sarah. Are you lost?"

Sarah paused and then gave the blue dog a second look. "Oh, I get it. You're guides, right?"

Tosh sniffed. "The best."

"You've been doing your homework," Pish said approvingly.

Sarah tugged at one sleeve. "So, if you two are guides that means I have to ask you to take me somewhere. Okay. Can you take me to Bikkit?"

"We sure can," Pish beamed.

Tosh sniffed the floor. "Funny smell, really. They're related to weasels, you say?"

* * * *

Karen knocked on the door once, twice. When no response came from her son on the other side she simply pushed it open and stepped in. Toby was sprawled on his bed, reading, and the reason that he failed to acknowledge the knocking was the thumping music in his earphones. Unceremoniously she reached to the ipod on the nightstand and tapped the Pause button.

He looked up in surprise that quickly became an insulted puppy dog look. "Mom!"

"It's seven, Toby. You wanted me to remind you of the time, honey."

"Oh. Coolness, I'd totally lost track. What's for dinner?"

She laughed and left the room. He followed like a puppy indeed – that is, a puppy drawn by sheer animal magnetism to the wonders of the dinner table. "Curry."

"Yum!"

Robert grunted a cordial mumble to his son as he drew out a chair and Karen began to spoon up rice and sweet curry with raisins and apricots and chicken bits for both her men. Toby dug in with the voracious appetite of a young man still having some growing to do. "This is good!" he announced and stuffed his face.

"Thank you, dear. How is your homework coming along?"

Toby poured apple juice for himself. "Oh, it's fine, just doing some revising and stuff. I'm meeting Leggy tonight so I figured I better get ahead while the getting was good and the house was quiet."

Karen nodded. "Leggy. That's just not a proper name for a girl."

"Well, her real name is Sharon."

"And will we ever meet this elusive – Sharon?" Robert inquired.

"Probably."

Karen exchanged glances with her husband and chuckled. "It's the way they do it nowadays, Robert. I'm sure that to them, this is just as romantic as it was for us when we'd spend all night next to the phone wondering if he would call."

"She," her husband corrected good-naturedly. "And I'd be the one trying to find the nerve to call."

"Yes, for you," Karen quipped. "For me, it was definitely a he. A very handsome he. Even had his own car. My parents hated him, he'd keep me out way too late when we were on a date."

"Too much information," both males replied, on cue.

* * * *

The dog trotted along at an easy pace that Sarah found it easy to keep up with as long as she did not stop too long to consider her surroundings. Its bushy blue tail wagged lightly; if this canine was akin to its Aboveground counterparts, it was enjoying itself. Or themselves; the two-headed thing took some getting used to. Now and then it stopped in front of heavy, oaken doors and both heads would toss her questioning looks.

"No," Sarah said for the third time. "Guys, I really appreciate it but I'm not here for a bouquet of epiphanies."

"What else is life?" Pish asked philosophically. "Oh, here's the trail."

"Looks like your ferret started off with hiding its treat in His Majesty's rooms somewhere and then went off to explore," Tosh agreed. "I'm picking up a lot of chicken fantasies. Do ferrets eat chickens?"

"Yeah, I suppose so. If they can catch them. Gosh damn."

Pish gave her a blue look. "Something bothering you?"

Sarah kept her expression neutral. "Not as bothered as His Majesty is going to be if he finds a half-eaten chicken in his sock drawer, I suspect."

Pish and Tosh chuckled, baring white canines, and trotted through a doorway and onto a balustraded walkway overlooking one of the castle gardens. The scent of lilacs in bloom hit her nose hard, rising from a grove beneath, draped in more shades of purple than she would have been able to name. The scene was casually not-quite-real, like a painting by Monet; all the colours and all of the light was there, working in fine details would draw away from the impression of the whole. The view was, for a lack of a more suitable term – dreamy. Sarah froze. The garden was not unoccupied. There, amidst the flowering trees, reclined a figure she remembered entirely too well.

He was asleep; an open book lay on his chest where slumber had dropped it. Dappled patterns of sunlight danced across his pale, delicate features, unchanged by time, as the light filtered through the foliage of the lilacs. There was nothing imposing or majestic about him as he lay in the grass, dressed simply in boots, grey breeches, and a ruffled white shirt. A lock of blond hair had fallen into his face. He looked peaceful, content to drift in whatever dream had taken him. She ached to whip out a sketchbook and capture this moment of quiet bliss for eternity; having none she settled for committing each detail to memory.

It was not until a soft nuzzle at her hand drew her back to reality – for a given value of reality – that she remembered what she was supposed to be doing. She reluctantly looked away from the garden below; Pish and Tosh were nudging at her to move.

"Time to move on," Pish said softly.

"Sarah felt a pang of regret. "Let's go find that damn ferret."

* * * *


	5. Inevitabilities

Toby resisted the urge to slam his head into the keyboard a few times in frustration. He called Sarah's number up on his cellphone but there was no answer. He even checked downstairs but Robert was using the dinosaur that passed for his computer, working on a spreadsheet. A Lotus spreadsheet, of all things archaic.

Truff peeked up at him from his dresser. "What's wrong?"

The youth shot the goblin an ominous look. "My monitor's on the fritz and I have no way of letting Leggy know I won't be on tonight, that's what."

The little creature tilted his head. "Want to play checkers?"

"Actually I'd like for Dad to go to bed or something so I can log on and let her know why I'm not there. I wish I had her number, I could just friggin' call her."

"Bad Toby!" That was Anastasia, peeking out from a bookshelf.

"Aw heck," he groaned. "I didn't mean it. Well, I did but not like -that-."

"Sarah says no wishing!" the blonde goblin scolded, then peered. "Why don't you have it?"

He sighed. "She says she's not ready to talk to me in real life yet. You got to be careful who you give out your number to on the Internet, Anastasia."

"Why?"

"There's all kinds of nutjobs out there, basically."

Anastasia giggled. "Like kids who believe in goblins?"

Toby could not resist a smile even if it ruined his perfectly good sulk. "Yeah, well, goblins seem to believe in me too." He threw himself on the bed and tried to dial Sarah once more. No answer. Something jingled. He turned his head to spot Truff happily going through the pockets of his jacket and waving his keyring.

Toby slapped his forehead. "Come on, guys, let's go visit Sarah."

Both goblins grinned. Truff stayed in his pocket as he pulled the jacket on; Anastasia hitched a ride on his shoulder. It didn't bother Toby in the slightest to walk through the house with two goblins as he knew full well that neither parent could see the little creatures. His mother would sometimes joke that the old Victorian house surely was haunted; his father just ignored the daily onslaught of random chaos that stemmed from living in a house with a passage to the Underground in one room. He helped Anastasia fasten the seatbelt in his old pickup and began to drive.

"You like that girl very much?" Anastasia asked.

"Oh hell yeah," Toby grinned. "She games, we like the same TV shows, and we both love Thai food. She's perfect."

"I bet she snores," Anastasia pouted.

He shot the goblin a glance. "Don't think I've forgotten how you guys harassed Leyla. That's another reason I'm in no rush to bring this girl home. I don't want her to run away screaming."

Anastasia at least had the decency to look guilty.

* * * *

Sarah held up the wriggling ferret in one hand while trying to dust flour off her with the other. Bikkit was not too excited about the white stuff in her nose but that did not stop her from trying to catch Sarah's other hand. She showed no remorse for the havoc she had wrecked in the larder, inspecting every jar and rearranging their contents in an elaborate mess of ferret feng shui.

"Don't worry about it," Pish said in response to the frustrated expression on Sarah's face.

"Nothing stays the same here long anyhow," Tosh agreed. "Do you want to go home now?"

Sarah kept a firm grip on her pet. "Yes, please. I owe you two big time for helping me get around. Is there anything I can do in return?"

Tosh shot her a canine grin. "We're just doing our jobs."

"But if you should happen to lose a spare box of those biscuits the ferret likes into the portal," Pish added innocently.

Sarah grinned and nodded. "Definitely. I have to go back and find the portal in the corridor now, right?"

Pish shrugged one blue-furred shoulder. "We can send you home."

Tosh shrugged the other shoulder. "Off you go. Remember the biscuits!"

Sarah was reminded of the end of her previous visit Underground that night so long ago as she felt herself falling and the larder falling to pieces like so much shattered glass around her. Reality asserted itself quickly, taking the familiar shape of her living room; something crackled under her feet and as she glanced down tiny bits of crystal faded into the carpet. She let go of a deep breath and looked around to be certain she was really back –

"What. The. Hell?"

– and spotted Toby sitting at her kitchen table behind the laptop computer, gaping at her with an expression not quite unlike an oxygen deprived goldfish.

Bikkit wriggled. Sarah released the flour-covered ferret and watched it make a beeline for the sofa. Feeling disoriented, the little predator's first choice was to hide, then assess the situation. As the last powdery tidbits of crystal faded around her, Sarah resisted an odd urge to join the ferret.

"You've got to be kidding," Toby said, still gaping.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

The youth blinked and picked up his jaw. "My computer's dead. I needed to message someone so I figured I'd let myself in and borrow yours real quick."

"Oh."

"You don't mind, right?"

"No," Sarah replied and tried to dust flour off her wind breaker. "It's fine. God, I need coffee."

"Yeah, me too." Toby shut the lid on on the laptop and stood. "That was one hell of a dramatic entry."

"I try," she murmured with heavy sarcasm. "Look, it's not what it seems like, Toby."

He tilted his head as he filled the coffee maker with water. "Oh, good. 'Cause it sure looked like one of His Nibs' glitter poofs to me."

Sarah flopped down on a chair and kicked off her sneakers. "We need to talk. And before you start getting snippy I could ask how you'd even know that in the first place."

Toby paused, and then nodded. "Yeah. I think we do need to talk, Sis."

She slipped out of the wind breaker, leaving a trail of flour that unfortunately did not fade away like crystal dust. "Bikkit found a portal and took off through it. I had to get her back. I went through, met a guide, and got back out before anything else could happen. She was in a larder, flour bathing."

Toby stared. "You went Underground?"

"I'm not planning to do it again. I'm locking that wardrobe from now on. If the goblins want in here they'll have to learn to poof or knock."

The youth sat down after turning the coffee maker on. He ran a hand through his blonde curls. "Yeah, it's just – it's always been rule number one, you know? No playing Alice. No following the white rabbit."

Sarah felt fatigue settle over her at last. "Yeah, I know. I would have asked one of the goblins to bring her back but to be honest I wasn't sure any of them would remember what I'd asked it to do. I adore the little gremlins but they're not exactly good at staying focused."

Toby glanced around; as no protests came forth from anywhere he looked relieved. "Truff and Anastasia are here somewhere. I think they went to nap in your bedroom, though."

Sarah nodded. "Good. Right. Toby. When were you planning to tell me about -him-?"

Her brother sighed and checked on the coffee maker. It was not quite done yet. "Okay, remember what it was like when we were kids? We had a wonderful secret. I had the best playmates ever. I had goblins where other kids had beanie babies. It was awesome except that everyone kept telling me about this one guy that I was never to talk about or even think about." Toby sighed. "I was a -kid-."

"Oh, you didn't," Sarah murmured.

He looked guilty. "Of course I did, I was curious. One day I was upset about something."

"You wished yourself away." She groaned.

Toby shook his head. "Nah, nothing that bad, Sis. I did pay attention to you and the Hogster sometimes, you know. I just wished I could talk to the guy. I was pouty and curious and I told myself I'd be grumpy too if everyone else was having fun and I couldn't join in. He told me not to tell anyone, not even the gang, because people would freak out. He made me promise. He's not so bad once you get to know him, though. I'm not in any danger."

"Let me get this straight, Tobes. You've been seeing the Goblin King since you were a kid. Even when you were old enough to find out the true story of what happened that night, what he was going to do to you. You know how -dangerous- he is, we've all told you a thousand times."

Something dark flickered across the youth's face. "Yeah, that's about it. Except the bit where everyone makes the guy out to be Darth Vader without knowing jack about his side of the story."

"I'm sure he was happy to tell you," Sarah quipped.

"All he ever said about that is that you won the game and to leave it alone." Toby sat back on his chair, relaxing visibly. "Anyway. I know you'd go Sarah Connor on the Underground if you thought I was in trouble, Sis, but you don't need to. I'm fine."

Sarah poured coffee and grabbed a pack of crackers as well. "Okay. I'll take your word for it. You're a big boy, Tobes, and you're obviously still -here-."

The youth stole a cracker. "How'd you find out anyway?"

She gave him an exasperated look. "It wasn't all that hard, Toby. You -quote- the man sometimes. 'Nothing, tra la la?' Knowing what a – what did you call it, a glitter poof? – looks like was just the last piece of the puzzle."

He blushed slightly. "Truth is, I haven't even really been talking much to anyone from the Underground lately. I've been six kinds of busy with school and World of Warcraft and Sharon. It's kinda ironic, you catch me -now-."

Sarah chuckled. "Yeah, well. One hint for you, bro. Don't take first date advice from the Goblin King."

* * * *

That night Sarah dreamt again. She heard the clock strike and turned away from the dance, slipping from his grasp and running to the edge of the crystal bubble that contained her dream. Her hand wandered to the chair that would break the illusion – and then she turned back again to face the man who stood where she had left him, surrounded by masked dancers. A small smile fluttered across his thin lips; then slowly he raised one gloved hand and held it out to her.

Sarah glanced at the window again. Her fifteen year old self stared back at her, large and frightened moss green eyes under an elaborate fairytale hairdo that sparkled with pearls and silver. She looked back at the King. Then she shot a glare at the masked dancers currently crowding her and jabbed an elbow into corseted ribs before walking back to slide into the dance with him again. He murmured something to her but like the previous night, she could not make out the words.

She rested her head on his shoulder. "You need to stop doing this," she told the sequined blue velvet softly.

* * * *

Toby rummaged through his locker, fishing out a textbook he was going to need later in the day and unloading a couple of others. He quickly checked on his appearance in the small mirror on the inside of the locker's metal door, running a hand through his curls before nodding to himself. He picked up his coat and closed the locker, already half-turning to walk away when he spotted the blonde man leaning against the wall, arms crossed and one leg drawn up under him so that the sole of his heeled boot rested on the metal. The Goblin King was not a man who simply knocked and entered; his talent for dramatics was, in Toby's opinion, as wildly out of proportion as his taste in clothing.

But then, it had been like that from the very first time they met. He had been eight years old and mightily upset with his older sister over something he could not even remember anymore. He had swiped her make-up mirror and run off into the garden to his secret place and said The Name out of spite. Then he had curled up and cried a bit about the unfairness of life and older siblings in general, until he had felt a gloved hand on his hair. He had nearly screamed like a girl. Mustering all his manly and eight year old pride, however, he had managed instead to just blurt out, "You're him!"

The blonde man with the strange eyes had knelt down next to him so that they were face to face. "You did call upon me," he had pointed out in his funny accent. "What are you upset about?"

Having his very own secret friend had been awesome. Other grownups were boring. Other grownups asked about school and whether he had brushed his teeth after dinner. Toby had not understood why Sarah and Hoggle were so adamant about him being bad and dangerous. He had a wicked sense of humour but they had never done anything together that was actually harmful. Not while Toby was a child and not after he had become a teenager, either. He had cried to Jareth about his first crush; the hedgehog in her bag had been his own idea – offering to carry her bag home until the quill sores on her hands had healed was Jareth's idea, though, and it had earned Toby his very first kiss. He had bragged about it for hours. He had discovered that girls could be -quite- interesting and unlike most boys his age who stumbled and struggled with the onslaught of hormones and the alien country that was girl thinking, he had had a friend who knew exactly what girls wanted. Toby had taken advantage shamelessly, becoming quite the little man about town.

The dramatic entrances had been a constant. In fact, Jareth was probably dramatic about taking a shower or doing the dishes. It was just the way he was; sly, regal, sarcastic, prone to theatrics, and occasionally more than a bit childish. In fact, if anything was to blame for Toby spending less time with the King these days, that streak of immaturity was it. There was more to life than fun and games; he was reaching an age where getting serious about a girl and his future started to look a lot more appealing than it had a few years previously.

"I will -never- get used to the dramatic entrances," Toby muttered. "Hello, Jareth."

The King inclined his head, ever regal. "Toby."

The youth shrugged into his coat. "Glamour?" He waved a hand in the general direction of the older man, indicating his odd-fashioned attire, breeches, riding boots, and glittery frock coat, suspecting that others might not notice anything unusual about him at all.

"Of course. I need for you to do me a favour."

"Sure? Depending on what you need, obviously. You're the one with the magic," Toby grinned.

"Yes," he replied crisply. "The magic that cannot penetrate one particular residence."

Toby stole a look at his companion's face. He was smiling. Not a sardonic smile, either, but an amused one. "What do you want me to do?"

Jareth raised a hand as if to inspect his fingernails through the leather glove. "Oh, nothing much. Just leave a door open. Well?"

"I don't know. Sarah was pretty pissed off about that stunt you pulled with the painting. How did you do that anyhow, what, with being unable to do magic in her place?"

"She has to leave her home to go to work."

"You tampered with the USB key in her bag? Sneaky."

"Why, thank you."

Toby stretched. "She knows about you and me. I must have been careless. I hope you're not too miffed about that."

Jareth hitched a shoulder dismissively. "It was inevitable."

"Yeah, well. I'm glad you're not angry about it," Toby smiled; angry Jareth was a caustic experience. "So what is this, payback for her sneaking around your place last night?"

Blue eyes of slightly different hues sparkled with mischief. "You could say that."

"Okay. What door are we talking about and what are you going to do?"

The Goblin King tsk'ed. "Such distrust."

"Yeah, well. Sarah doesn't exactly trust you. I'm all for a joke but I'm not getting into some private vendetta between you two. As far as she's concerned you're a baby snatching monster."

"I am, aren't I?" Jareth laughed. "It's really quite high time to change her perception of me, don't you think? You have my word, Toby, I mean her no harm."

* * * *


	6. Glitter Me Up, Scotty

A/N: This chapter is for Jane Owen who held my hand while I cried my bitter tears because FFnet wouldn't let me upload yesterday.

-----

Will studied the sketch that Sarah had laid out for him after carefully checking it for unexpected changes. "I like it," he said at length. "It's not the same model as the first though?"

Sarah shook her head. "I decided to make some changes. Vampires are supposed to be eternally young and all that so I wanted a more twentyish look. The black hair worked better with the background too."

Her editor nodded. "Yeah, it's pretty good, actually. Did you use a picture reference for the clothes?"

"Yep. Eighteenth century Venetian. I figured there might be a history buff out there somewhere."

Will grinned. "I like it. It's more Anne Rice than the original but that's fine. The masks on the wall are a nice touch of duplicity, very suggestive. When can you have the finished piece ready?"

Sarah grinned back. "Give me a few days. I'm still a bit under the weather."

"That's fine. Are you having lunch with Amanda today?"

"Actually I was going to take off early, do some grocery shopping and go home and hide in bed," Sarah smiled. "I feel like I haven't slept at all last night."

Will stroked his chin. "Ah. Did I tell you to drink cranberry juice?"

She rolled the sketch up and put it in her bag. "Yep. See you later, Will."

Grocery shopping was reduced to an absolute minimum; big box of dog biscuits for Pish and Tosh, high protein kitten food for Bikkit, dark bread, a slab of cheddar cheese, milk, and a couple of other necessities but nothing extravagant or time consuming; Sarah just wanted to go home. She was emotionally exhausted as if she had, say, spent the entire night dancing with a fairytale king after getting into bed late in the first place.

Once back in her apartment Sarah put the groceries away and showered before switching into track pants and an old t-shirt to curl up on her sofa under a blanket. She tried reading for a while but eventually she had to accept that her mind was happily drifting back to those dreams and the scene she had spied on amidst the lilacs. He had looked so peaceful. She wondered what he had been saying as they danced. Maybe next time she should dream up a notepad and a pencil. The resulting mental image of His Glittery Highness writing notes like a boy in class made her giggle.

Her mind drifted again, this time to her speed-talking twenty-year-old brother who dropped in every other day to bum dinner and some peace and quiet in which to study. He had his own key and Sarah certainly did not blame him for using it. He had a keen mind but even the most disciplined academic could study only so hard in a house that routinely was invaded by goblins, fairies, and the occasional fiery. Toby might not remember his involuntary visit to the Underground as a toddler but he had retained the ability to see its residents as he aged.

When he had grown old enough to talk Sarah and Hoggle had taken turns drilling into the boy's head that he was never to talk about the goblins and other creatures to other people, and he could never, ever use the words 'I wish'. A few years after that she had told him a somewhat shortened version of what had happened during those thirteen hours. It had involved the words 'our little secret' a good many times. She had not told him how he had ended up swished away to the Underground until he was a teenager who had just returned from babysitting Mrs Douglas next door's two toddlers. At that point Toby had been quite willing to agree that yes, there were times when you wished that goblins – or any other merciful entity within earshot – would take the kids away, but you did not -really- mean it.

A scrapey, knocking kind of noise pulled Sarah from her reverie. She hopped off the sofa and walked over to open the door to her bedroom before a goblin decided to simply chew -through- it. A small series of thuds ensued as Elmo fell off the bed and bounced around. Anastasia waved hello from her vanity table whereupon assorted pieces of jewellery and make-up were being spread out for the tow-headed goblin's perusal.

"Hi, Sarah!"

The wardrobe was open. Sarah spun and looked towards Bikkit's cage, moved into the living room. It was blatantly ferret free.

"This is not happening," she told herself. "Anastasia! Close that door and help me find Bikkit!"

Elmo looked confused as he was shoved out of the way and the wardrobe door firmly closed. Then, helpfully, he crawled in under the bed.

Sarah picked up the treat box and rattled it in the hope that Bikkit was in the mood for begging or stealing. "How did you two get in? I closed that door."

Anastasia peered at her from the vanity. "It was open, Sarah."

"I -know- I closed it this morning before I let Bikkit out. She found your portal."

"It will come back," Anastasia said confidently and reached for the darkest red lipstick.

Sarah slumped. "Unless she gets lost. Crap. I'm going to have to go and find her, aren't I."

Neither goblin replied. Anastasia was busy trying to apply the lipstick and Sarah could not see Elmo's wide grin under the bed.

Sarah checked everywhere. She checked under the kitchen sink twice, given Bikkit's penchant for hiding her hoard of stolen erasers there. Both goblins were happy to help rummaging around but their attention spans were short and Sarah had to remind them both several times what they were doing. She recovered several missing pencils, woollen socks with holes chewed in, and half-eaten biscuits in the search but the little thief herself was nowhere in sight. Eventually she resigned herself to her fate, put on her sneakers, packed the dog biscuits into her wind breaker, swallowed two headache pills and got ready to traverse the dimensions, also known as crawling on hands and knees through her wardrobe.

The fog was the same as on her first venture. She crawled towards the light in the distance, entertaining various little fantasies about the shaving of ferrets that she would never act upon. Bikkit was after all just doing what ferrets did best: Getting into places where they did not belong. It was with some relief that Sarah crawled out of the broom closet, recognising the corridor on the other side.

* * * *

Time moved at another scale in the Underground, that much she knew. Now was apparently night; the hallway was utterly void of light. Sarah spent a moment or two wondering whether goblins simply had night vision like cats. Then she got on her feet and looked at the window sills for welcome wagon worms. They were empty but for a few wispy rays of moonlight that allowed her to at least make out their contours. The Goblin City below was quiet. She peered down the hallway to the right. It was dark.

A crisp, tinkling noise rang out at her feet. She looked down, and froze. A crystal orb, about the size of a child's fist, rolled past her and slowly came to a rest a few meters ahead. It gave off a very faint glow.

Several options went through Sarah's mind very quickly. Running like all heck was one. Screaming was definitely another. Counting to ten and pretending not to have seen the damn thing, that would work too. The problem with all three was that they would only postpone the inevitable. She picked option number four and turned around. Might as well face the music.

He was leaning against the frame of one of the oaken doors, arms crossed. In the darkness she could not make out much detail but the white and tan owl feathers of the cloak that hugged his body, falling to the mid-calves of soft velvet boots, and the sparkling blue-gray eyes that were focused on her. The man was out of her world. Literally.

"Well, well. Look what the ferret dragged in." His voice was every bit as silky as she remembered.

Something wriggled on his arm. Bikkit!

"You come looking for this little lady, I presume?" He scratched the ferret's ear with one gloved finger. She promptly nipped at the pale grey leather.

Against her better judgement Sarah blurted out, "You're a ferret snatcher now?"

He stared at her for a split second. Then he laughed, a soft, rippling sound, and circled around her. She circled along, maintaining eye contact as he – and Bikkit – remained just outside of arm's reach. He was not as tall as she remembered him to be, standing only an inch or two taller than her adult self. In her memories he had towered over her. "Am I?" he asked. "I am what you make me."

Bikkit enjoyed his touch, Sarah noticed. "I'm starting to think that she's been here more than once before."

"Oh yes, quite often. Rather an inquisitive little thing, isn't she?" His gaze wandered up and down her. "You have changed quite a bit."

Sarah felt self-conscious in her sweat pants and t-shirt. "We call it growing up."

He stepped towards, more than a bit too close for comfort but not actually touching her. Bikkit promptly hopped from his arm onto hers. Her fingers curled into the ferret's fur, holding it tight, as the King reached up to tip her chin upwards. "Tell me, Sarah, are you still afraid of me?"

She looked him straight in the mismatched eyes. "What do you think, Goblin King?"

"Humour me," he purred.

Sarah resisted the urge to back up against the wall. "All right. Yes, I'm afraid of you. I don't know what the hell you are but I'm in no doubt that you could mess my life up seriously if you put your heart into it. On the other hand you've had twenty years to get started so I don't think you really intend to. As long as the worst you get up to is sending me silly ballroom dreams I'll deal."

"What dreams are those?"

"The ballroom dreams. We are dancing. You try to tell me something but I can't hear what you're saying."

His eyes sparkled as he dropped his hand and stepped back, allowing her to restore the sanctity of her personal space. "Interesting. I am flattered that you remember me so fondly, Sarah, but I assure you that those dreams are none of my doing."

She shot him what she hoped was a defiant look. "I don't exactly know a lot of other people who are capable of inspiring dreams like that."

His crooked grin made her realise what she had just said. "Why, thank you. Be that as it may, Sarah, I assure you that if I were to do such a thing, you would be in no doubt as to my intentions in said dreams."

Bikkit wriggled boredly. Sarah glanced down. "Right. I think this is where I leave."

"Allow me." He offered her his hand.

She looked at it. Well, it was a very nice hand, covered in pale grey leather with tan trimmings.

"If you prefer crawling through a wardrobe, who am I to argue?" he teased.

Sarah grabbed hold of the King's sleeve with a snort. "Fine. Glitter me up, Scotty."

The world fell down, like when Pish and Tosh sent her home the previous night but with a more dream-like quality like a mirror shattering, filmed in slow motion through thin gauze, the crystal pieces falling away to reveal something as mundane and predictable as her living room. Trust the Goblin King to be an artist even about dispatching her from his realm.

* * * *

"Oh, now you gone and done it, Missy," Hoggle growled. "Can't leave well enough alone, can ya?"

Sarah sat cross-legged in her bed, looking at her friend in the mirror. She was still wearing the sweat pants and t-shirt but had kicked her sneakers off and she had made herself tea and a sandwich before calling upon the dwarf. Bikkit was snoozing with the ever-pristine conscience of a ferret with a two minute short term memory in her cage. "I've done what, Hoggle?"

"Don't you be takin' that innocent tone with me," he admonished, waggling a finger at her. "You went and gone through, you did. I can feel it."

"Yeah, I did. And you know what? Nothing happened. I got back out just fine both times."

"Both times?" he echoed. "Are you out of your bloody mind?"

"Hoggle, I love you to bits and pieces, but is it even remotely possible that maybe, just maybe, you're overreacting a bit?" Sarah felt an odd sense of elevation still.

The dwarf on the other side of the mirror snorted. Then he gave her a closer look-over. "You seen the King." It was not a question.

"Yeah. Turns out my damn ferret has been making a habit out of going exploring in fairyland."

"So what happened?"

"Nothing. Honest, Hoggle, nothing. He handed Bikkit over and sent me home. That's it. Maybe he was busy, maybe he just can't be bothered. It -has- been twenty years." Sarah sipped her tea and took a bite out of her sandwich. Mm, pastrami.

The small man rolled his eyes. "He's a rat."

"Rats have a very unfair reputation," Sarah grinned. "I had this friend in college who had a white pet rat. She was kind of cute, actually. Very cuddly. The rat, not my friend."

Hoggle rolled his eyes again, exasperated. "You know what rats do, Sarah? They survive. You set traps and lay poison, the rats, they just figure it out and go on doin' what they do. Ain't no getting' rid of 'em, best as you can hope for is makin' 'em go bother someone else. Don't you be encouraging the Royal Rat to stick around. He ain't – cuddly."

She finished chewing. "I wasn't exactly planning on asking him for a snuggle."

* * * *

Sarah's elevated mood lasted through the next day. She cracked thank god it's Friday jokes with her co-workers without sharing in their tiredness, had lunch with Amanda, and left for home, whistling old pop tunes to herself all day. She was on all fours on the floor picking out abandoned toys and half-eaten biscuits from under the sofa in the late afternoon when Toby let himself in, using his key.

"Heya, Sis," he called out and went to raid her fridge. "Good mood?"

"Hell yeah," Sarah agreed whilst wondering what strange compulsion it was that ferrets are under that causes them to steal and bury erasers like their little furry lives depended on how many they managed to stash.

Toby made himself a giant peanut butter sandwich. "Spill! What's the occasion?"

Sarah laughed and sat up, dusting off her shirt and admiring her pile of retrieved loot. "You're not going to believe it, Tobes. I went back Underground."

"Okay...?"

"I kinda had to. Bikkit found out how the goblins get in through my damn wardrobe, and well, she's a ferret. I had to go get her back out. Turns out the little minx thinks of the Underground as her personal play pen. Figures, really."

"Wardrobe?" Toby looked a bit dumbfounded.

"Yeah. Like in Narnia, but without the lion and the witch." Sarah got up and stretched before putting her liberated erasers away.

"Okay," Toby said again, and took a big bite of peanut butter sandwich.

She put on coffee. "You have no idea what a big load off my shoulders this is."

Toby nodded, speaking with his mouth full. "Yeah, I figure I do, Sis. You and the Hogster have been way worried about that forever. So, did you talk to His Nibs?"

"Briefly. Very briefly. He handed Bikkit over and sent me home, nothing more. But that's sure as heck preferable to a lot of other things he could have done if he was still pissed, I figure."

Toby grinned. "Oh yeah. So what are you gonna do to keep Bikkit from running off again?"

Sarah hitched a shoulder. "She's a ferret. She'll find a way. Besides, I think he doesn't mind her running around. He held her and she didn't seem bothered in the slightest. I could move her cage in here and keep the bedroom door locked but then I'd have to go let the goblins in and out all the time. If he doesn't mind her, I don't really mind her running off, either."

"I don't think he minds," Toby said and sat down to sprawl on a kitchen chair while licking peanut butter off his fingers. "Except the bit where she thinks the foot end of his bed belongs to her. He's complained about toe biting once or twice."

Sarah had to laugh out loud at the mental image of a certain Goblin King threatening to toss a certain ferret head first into the Bog of Eternal Stench if it didn't let go of his foot. She poured extra milk in her coffee to take the brunt off the caffeine.

"Mind if I use your laptop a bit? I really want to talk to Leggy and the new graphics card for my 'puter hasn't arrived yet."

"Nah, go ahead. I need to do some sketching sometime but I can do that on paper if you're not done."

Toby flipped up the lid of the laptop and hit the power button. While waiting for the computer to chug through the motions of opening Windows and Firefox automatically checking Sarah's live bookmarks for new updates he peered over at the sketchpad his sister was taking out. "What are you working on, anyway?"

"Mm, nothing much. I still have a few finishing touches to do on the fairy series. Will wanted something autumnal for the November one so I'm going to work in some maple leaves for the colour scheme." Sarah sharpened her trusty No. 2 pencil.

"Myeah." Toby was distracted by the pling pling sounds of MSN being ready and listing on-line contacts. He began to type, lost to the world.

* * * *


	7. Is She Supposed to be Blue?

Driving home from Sarah's apartment Toby pulled his old pickup over at the small park near his parents' house. He kicked at a few pebbles on the path before coming to rest on the small bridge crossing the brook that ran through the area, resting his elbows on the railing and glowering into the murky water below as if looking for something in the depths. Not surprisingly, the water was as non-informative as were the stars of the dark night sky overhead. Some people would have looked up at the sound of wings and pointed out the white owl that glided on the night wind; Toby failed to react even as the nocturnal bird of prey vanished in a glittery ripple of magic, taking on the human shape of the Goblin King standing next to him on the bridge. The otherworldly visitor leaned his elbows on the railing too, mirroring the youth's posture.

"I didn't expect to see you tonight," Toby said at length, keeping his eyes on the swirling water. "Figured you'd be busy."

Jareth arched an eyebrow. "My, my, someone's in a bad mood."

Toby pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sorry. It's just..." He looked up from the water at the man next to him. "I'm a little worried about Sarah and my girlfriend is driving me insane."

Jareth hitched a shoulder. "Sarah seemed well enough. Tell me about the girlfriend."

"Meh. She still won't give me her number. It's like she thinks I'm some kind of stalker." Toby sighed. "I'm starting to feel like that joke is real, you know – the one where you find out that the hot chick you've been chatting to is really some forty year old nerd living in his mother's basement."

The King tapped a gloved finger against his lips. "I see. I wonder what secrets Sharon might keep."

Toby shot him a hopeful look.

Jareth smirked. "Come, come, Toby. You do realise how many women named Sharon there are in this world? I will need something of hers. Bring me something that belonged to her or was made by her, and I will see what I can do."

"Yeah, that's gonna be a piece of cake," Toby muttered, slumping. "I can't get her number so I ask her to send me her favourite teddy bear instead. Maybe I could ask her to knit me a sweater and mail it with no return address."

"Tch. What makes this girl different from the others?"

"I'm not sure," Toby admitted. "It's just the way she is. We just click. I feel like I could tell her anything."

"Anything?"

"Yeah, well, anything except things no one else can see. She'd think I was crazy."

"Quite likely. Ask her to draw your game personas together."

"What?"

"Oh, do pay attention," he snapped. " Ask her to draw what she thinks this – Leggylas – person looks like and then show you the drawing online."

Toby put the pieces together. "Because she would have made it. I can save the image and give it to you. Jareth, you're so the man."

The King did not challenge the statement.

* * * *

Family dinners took place on Sundays. Sarah had a standing invitation which at one time had also included her then husband Rob, and she rather enjoyed going to her parents' and parttaking of Karen's excellent cooking. It was easy to get a little lazy when you lived alone, maybe cut back a bit on the grocery shopping or get distracted by painting or reading and end up with a sandwich for dinner. Family dinner was yummy, solid and well made, and Karen was a wizard in the kitchen. Family dinner was also a way for the Williamses to catch up on the week's events together. Sarah obviously had no intention of discussing her two visits to another world with Robert and Karen, blind even to the goblins residing in their own house, but she was more than happy to share office gossip and receive the same in return. Mrs. Kincaid's daughter up the street had a new boyfriend who rode an awfully noisy motorbike. One of Robert's co-workers was getting married next month and he was already dreading the interviews for her replacement as young people grew dumber and more dependent every year. Toby objected dutifully to that, being the youngest person present.

When dessert had been consumed, and it was indeed an excellent blueberry pie, the men would retire to the living room while the women did the dishes. Sarah's inner feminist still had issues with this arrangement but that was the way Karen and Robert did things, and as Karen had once pointed out, she was welcome to do them differently when she was the hostess.

When Karen put leftovers away and Sarah scraped off dirty plates into the dog bowl, it was time for another tradition, namely the maternal investigation of Sarah's love life.

"No, I'm not seeing anyone," Sarah grinned as usual.

"Such a pity," Karen shot back. "You're not getting any younger, dear. What about that handsome man at the office?"

It could have been a play, with rehearsed lines. "Nah, Will's not my type. He fusses too much."

Karen laughed. "They're never your type, darling. No matter whom I suggest."

"I'm happy being alone," Sarah agreed. "It's really nice to have the place all to myself and not be dependent on anyone. I can waltz around in my underwear or sit up all night playing loud music or eat cookies in bed if I want to."

Karen carefully wrapped up the leftover slices of pie. "And scar my son for life if he walks in while you're doing just that. How many times did he come over this week?"

"Two or three, I think. He needed to borrow my computer to talk to his girlfriend. I'd like to point out that I was decent every time."

"Has he told you anything about her?"

"She's an unmarried mother of three, an alcoholic, and a member of a radical terrorist cell."

Karen laughed. "I can pry. He's my son."

"He hasn't said anything. He met her online, didn't he?"

"I think so. I'd like to know more, though. He seems so preoccupied. It's not like Toby to get all hung up on a girl. Maybe she's the one." Karen's eyes gleamed.

"Don't start sending out wedding invitations before he's had her over for dinner at least once," Sarah cautioned teasingly. "She'll need the Sarah stamp of approval."

"She'll need the Karen stamp of approval first," Karen sniffed. "He's my boy and I reserve the right to spoil him rotten and watch over him like a hawk."

Sarah pretended not to see the goblin tip-toeing to the dog bowl to secure the best bits. "I'm sure he'll work things out. He's a clever guy. Even if he's a spoiled brat and overall mama's boy."

Karen laughed and swatted at her.

Back in the living room Toby had glued himself to Robert's computer, and was now lost to the physical world. He grunted his thanks when his mother and sister returned, bringing coffee and cookies and mumbled something about needing to update his Java before disappearing into cyberspace again.

Karen sighed at him. "I swear, kids these days. They live in an entirely different world than the one we grew up in. Cellphones and laptops and online chat."

Robert grunted his agreement from behind the newspaper. It was not hard to see where Toby had learned this behaviour from.

"At least they don't have bomb drills in school," Sarah quipped. "Hide under your desk and you'll be safe from a nuclear explosion, sure, sure."

Karen chuckled. "Well, that was the fifties for you, dear. At least we knew our boyfriends face to face."

"I heard that," Toby inserted, attention still on the monitor.

"On the up side, at least you have more to choose from," his mother consented. "And I suppose it's all the better that people don't make decisions based on appearance and dress." She did not sound very convinced.

"Oh my god, this is awesome," Toby exclaimed and pointed at the monitor excitedly. "Sarah, you gotta see this."

She put her coffee cup down and walked over to peek over her brother's shoulder. The page he had pulled up was greenish and displayed a clumsy colour pencil drawing of a woman with exaggerated, pointed ears wearing very little. "Okay, what's special about it, Tobes?"

"It's -her-."

Sarah took a second glance. "That's Leggylas?"

"Well, yeah. Her character, not the real Sharon."

"I didn't think the real Sharon would have pointy ears, no."

"Meh. I know you can do better, Sis, but Leggy's not a professional."

Sarah nodded. "Yeah, sorry. It's not my kind of thing. Skinny elves in the buff and all."

Toby grinned. "I love it. 'Cause she made it."

"He's got it -bad-," Karen commented as her son turned on the printer.

* * * *

Toby waited until Sarah had gone home and his parents had gone to bed. He sat cross-legged on his bed, looking at the drawing Sharon had made. So she was no great artist, and the World of Warcraft elves were designed to grab the eye of hormone-plagued teenage boys. It was something she had made, the very first thing he had from her that was uniquely -hers-. He wanted to frame the print and put it on his wall so it would be the first thing he would see in the morning. Unfortunately, it was going to serve other purposes but he'd print another copy and do that too. Oh yes.

He stood and tapped the mirror on the front of his wardrobe. "Elmo?"

Within moments the fuzzy goblin's face appeared with a questioning look.

"Heya. I need to go in and see His Glitteryness. Want to give me a ride?"

The goblin grinned and threw him a parody of an army salute. The world around Toby went hazy.

When the boy's eyes adjusted to the reality shift he found himself standing in the throne room of the Castle Beyond the Goblin City, amidst goblins and the occasional chicken, none of whom paid much attention to his magical arrival. With the casual air of someone who had made the trip many times he looked around and brushed a trace of glitter off one sleeve.

"Hello, Toby."

The silky voice's owner was lounging sideways on the throne, one leg thrown casually over its arm. Simply dressed – for him – the Goblin King wore a frilly white shirt, black vest, and grey breeches, and looked quite unperturbed at the intrusion. A small, bird-headed goblin that Toby was not familiar with sat on his knee.

Toby held up the print victoriously. "Your plan worked. I got it!"

Jareth arched one winged eyebrow as if to question the idea that his plan might -not- have worked, and held out a gloved hand. "Let's see, then."

The bird goblin hopped off the King's knee and stuck its tongue out at Toby as it skittered away to join its companions around the beer keg in one corner. Toby walked up the steps and surrendered the paper. Jareth straightened in his seat and tilted his head to study the print.

"She's not an artist," the youth said defensively.

"Her talent, or lack thereof, is not of consequence. She put a lot of thought into this."

"You can tell?"

"I can tell that she spent a long time struggling to get it to look right. She looked at a lot of other pictures and copied details from some of them. What matters is not the outcome but the amount of time and energy she directed to her work, and in that regard, this will serve our purpose very well."

Several small figures hopped up on the throne's arms to peek. Jareth let them, swatting at one who tried to chew a corner of the paper. "It's a lady!" one declared.

"She's got big boobies!"

"Is she supposed to be blue?"

"Maybe she's freezing."

"Hush," the King brushed them off and stood, goblins scattering left and right. "Yes, this will do, Toby. Well done."

"So what do we do now?"

Jareth's thin lips curled into a small smile. "You'll go back and get a good night's sleep. I will pay your Sharon a visit."

Toby nodded and then paused. "You won't let her see you, will you? I don't want her to feel stalked."

The King held out a slender hand and a crystal orb materialised on his palm out of nowhere. "Your lack of trust is disturbing. No, you cannot come and you cannot watch." He released the crystal and it floated towards the youth who began to fade away, returning to his own realm.

* * * *

Monday morning Sarah turned in the last of her seasonal fairies with relief; the project had been interesting but after a while, retouching and adjusting the same pictures over and over until Will was satisfied made her want to be done with them and take on something new. That's how it always was, and Will really was not unreasonable at all as far as editors went, but she loved the development phase far more than finalising the artwork. The sketches always had a little wild something that was excruciatingly difficult to capture in the finished image, however technically perfect it might be. Raw pencil lines could speak volumes where neat inking stuttered and struggled to get a message across.

Will already had her next project lined up and called her into the meeting room to look over the customer's proposal; a children's book telling the story of a couple of curious elf children in a small village in the author's garden. The writer had supplied a few sketches and descriptions, and Sarah was delighted to see that he was not looking for Tolkienesque grace or cutesy things that belonged on Christmas cards. The elf children had a streak of the twisted and mischievous, and the adults were chubby and rosy-cheeked. They made their clothes from the petals of flowers, and some of them had wings. In effect, they were fairies.

"So, you want to do this?" Will inquired.

"Yeah, definitely. They remind me of those photos... Sometime in the late 19th century, a couple of British girls made cut-out dolls of fairies and took pictures in their garden. They passed them off as genuine."

"Oh, yeah, I've heard about that somewhere. People believed in them, didn't they?"

Sarah smiled. "At least for a while. Maybe I'll look into Victorian art for inspiration. Add a touch of New Age too, to get it back into modern times. The kids go into the writer's house sometimes, right?"

Will nodded. "There's a scene where they discover television, yep."

"Righto. I'm off to the library."

* * * *


	8. A Very Cunning Plan

She met Amanda for lunch at their usual coffee shop, both of them ordering the pasta salad. They seated themselves at a corner table and began to eat. "Oh god, I needed this," Amanda said blissfully. "I totally forgot breakfast today. Again. Will wants me to proofread half a dozen kiddie books this month. I'm about to turn into a Disney Princess."

"I'd pay good money to see that," Sarah commented, picking away the black olives from her salad; she hated their salty aftertaste. "I bet you'd make an awesome princess. Poofy pink dress and sequins everywhere."

"I'd kick your ass with my fairy wand of magical wishes and then I'd go shop for proper clothes using your credit card."

"Mm, Disney Grunge Princess, a new line for today's kids."

"Rides a black My Little Pony with a rainbow mohawk and black leather tack with silver studs."

"Has Ken chained to the stove wearing only a leather thong."

Both women giggled at the mental images. "Yeah, and this is why neither of us design toys for children," Amanda grinned.

"Oh, you'd prefer to design adult ones?" Sarah nibbled on a bit of chicken innocently.

"Cool beans," Amanda replied, looking over Sarah's shoulder. "Fancypants just walked in. You didn't tell me this guy was real. I blame you entirely for my newfound heartbreak."

Sarah turned to look. Two thoughts hit her simultaneously. One, the Goblin King, grey breeches, burnt umber leather jacket, riding boots and all, was strolling into the coffee shop. Two, no one but Amanda and herself seemed to notice, in spite of the man's unusual clothing, wild hair, and make-up. In fact, the barrista took his order without as much as a second glance. "Bloody hell."

Amanda waved. "Over here!"

"Shut up," Sarah hissed quickly.

Amanda waved again. "Hey hot pants, we're over here!"

Jareth walked towards their table, smiling slightly. The image of a cat that just spotted a particularly juicy mouse asleep atop the cream bottle came to her mind. He balanced his coffee cup easily in one hand. "Did you want something, miss?"

"You're him, aren't you," Amanda beamed. "You're the guy Sarah paints."

"My reputation seems to precede me," he replied easily. "May I join you, ladies?"

Amanda kicked the chair out with one foot. "Hell yes! I'm Amanda."

He sat, gracefully. "My pleasure. Hello, Sarah."

Amanda looked starstruck. The Goblin King did have a certain – presence, although he apparently also possessed the ability to not be noticed by anyone in a crowded room unless he wanted to be. "Hello," she replied. "What are you doing here?"

He sipped his coffee. "That should be obvious. I am looking for you."

"I've been warned against taking things for granted," Sarah muttered.

"Ouch." Amanda shot a warning glance at the King. "I don't even know you, mister, but when Sarah uses -that- voice, someone's in the dog house."

"We've had a few differences of opinion in the past," he agreed.

Amanda shot a glance at her wristwatch. "I got to go in ten minutes. How much detail can you manage before then?"

Sarah made a half-choked noise in her throat, fighting the urge to kick her friend under the table. "Did you want something from me?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. I wanted to talk about Toby, but surely it can wait nine minutes and forty seconds."

"Oh, you know Toby too?" Amanda was radiant.

A small smirk played on the King's lips. "I've had some influence on his upbringing. I've known him since he was quite young. Sarah used to babysit him in the evenings."

"Oh, I get it." Amanda grinned at Sarah. "I bet your parents didn't know about you sneaking boyfriends over when they went out, kiddo. I used to totally do the same thing. Tuck the kid in early and make out on the sofa all evening."

Much to her frustration Sarah felt her face taking on the colour of a beet. "That's not what happened."

"Uh huh. Naughty Sarah." Amanda finished off her salad. "Right, I better get going before you try to stab me with a plastic fork. But I want details tomorrow, lots of juicy, gory details, with blood, tears, sex, and drama. I'll even make popcorn."

"In your dreams," Sarah scoffed.

"Back to the slave pit I go. Have fun, you two."

Sarah watched as her friend strolled out, leaving her alone in a crowded room with the Goblin King who seemed to be enjoying his coffee. Eventually she turned her eyes back on him. "What -do- you want?"

"Advice. Your opinion, as it were."

Sarah rubbed her temple with one hand. "Back up a moment. How can you even be here? I sure as hell didn't make any wishes. How come people don't seem to notice you? What did Amanda -see-? And why did you let her see you in the first place?"

He leaned back on his chair and ticked answers off on his fingers. "I can enter your world when I want, excepting your home. You did not. I don't want them to. Me, but I encouraged her not to pay attention to my attire. I assumed that if I were to approach you alone you would find an excuse to run away."

She speared the very last bit of chicken aggressively. "I am not -running away-," she stressed the words. "I don't run away from trouble."

"If you say so, Sarah. I assume that Toby has showed you this?" He reached into his coat to produce a folded sheet of cheap photocopier paper. Unfolding it, he slid it across the table.

Sarah opened it; it depicted the Warcraft elf drawing, in black and white. "I've seen it, yeah."

The King steepled his slender fingers. "Toby is very taken with this girl. He has had romantic liaisons in the past, of course, but I suspect he's quite serious about this Sharon. Unfortunately she is possessed of a quite secretive nature."

"And you're involved with this how?"

Jareth smirked. "Ever the fierce lioness where Toby is concerned, aren't you? He asked for my help in finding out why she evades his inquiries."

"And being the generous fairytale king that you are..."

"Yes, yes. Would you prefer to have this conversation somewhere else? Screaming and stomping your feet here might draw unwanted attention."

Sarah took a deep breath and counted to ten. Then she pushed her plate away and buttoned up her coat. "Yes. You can walk me to the library. If you stop baiting me, that is."

* * * *

They must have cut quite the picture to any casual observer who would just have happened to possess the same gifts of seeing the unseen that the two Williams children did; Sarah, perfectly ordinary and everyday suitable, a woman walking with her hands in her coat pockets and a shoulder bag tucked in under one arm. Jareth, escaped from either a fairytale or a rental stable, or possibly a rental stable in a fairytale. The chill autumn winds did not seem to bother him although his clothes could not offer suitable protection; nor did the traffic noise or people brushing past them earn as much as a cocked eyebrow. He was not as much of a stranger to her world as Sarah had assumed. But then, she had been warned against taking things for granted.

They walked for a while in silence until they were able to escape from the crowded main street into the small open area in front of the town library, complete with a small fountain, a few benches, and a tree or three. Not exactly a secluded area, but at least somewhat less public than the coffee shop; she wanted privacy but with the safeguard of other people being in the area, if not within earshot. She sat on one of the cast iron benches and patted the seat next to her.

The King draped himself across the bench, one leg stretched, the other resting across the first. "Well?"

"Well? You wanted to talk to me, remember?"

"Tch. I liked you better the other night, all nervous and ready to skitter."

She smirked. "Well, that was on your turf. Now you're on mine, Goblin King. I think I get to be the one acting all superior and bossy here."

He pretended to consider it before nodding. "I suppose that's only, ah, fair. Now tell me about Sharon of the blue skin and the ridiculously pointy ears."

"You're as bad as Karen," Sarah groused. "I honestly know jack all about her. Toby met her online. They play the same fantasy game. He's obsessed with her, but he doesn't really know anything about her. Why do you care in the first place?"

The King stroked his chin with slender fingers. "I have been studying her a bit. She appears to be a tad troubled."

Sarah frowned. "You've been spying on Toby's girl?"

"I prefer the term 'investigating', for future reference."

"Right," she snorted. "Spying. I doubt Toby told you to report to me, though, so where did I get dragged into this dubious scheme?"

He grinned. "He most certainly did not. The girl is what she claims to be, at least, by which I mean to say that she is in fact of the female disposition and the same age. She lives not too far from here, she is an animal lover, and she is quite attractive. All qualities of which I am certain your brother will approve."

"You forgot the dragging Sarah into this scheme bit."

Jareth pinched the bridge of his nose. "Must you be so difficult? Sharon appears to be in a relationship already. She is afraid of this fellow, but also attracted to him in spite of her decision to break it off. It would appear that they tend to break up and get back together regularly."

Sarah shrugged. "So the chick is a little minx or maybe just stupid. The internet isn't the safest place to meet people, you know. Toby knows that much. Why do you care?"

He gave her a very direct, blue stare. "I care about Toby, and I ask for your input because you'd turn up at my castle, quoting children's novellas by the line if I acted in a way you did not feel to be in his best interest."

"I'm not fifteen anymore. I might just take a baseball bat to your kneecaps."

"Now who is baiting who?"

"Point." Sarah relaxed somewhat. "What do you want me to do exactly?"

"I want you to take this sorry excuse for a portrait and turn it into a real painting. Have it printed on good quality paper, have it framed, and see to it that Toby mails it to her. I will provide her street address if necessary, although it would be quite preferable if he could convince her to give it up in the promise of a present."

"You want to commission a painting of a Warcraft elf. Okay, that one's going in the diary," Sarah laughed. "Can't you just magic it up?"

"I am somewhat restricted Aboveground and an illusion would not suffice. She would wonder at the empty space on her wall once the spell wore off."

Sarah tapped her lips. "Hrm, yes, that might be a bit weird. So let's say I do this painting – what happens next?"

"That depends entirely on your brother. At least he will have her real name and street address. I'm not going to make the first phone call for him. Getting to know her and diverting her interest from her ex-not-ex-ex-again is on his shoulders. Do we have an understanding?"

She mentally checked her schedule. With Will's new commission she'd have enough to see to in the next few weeks. "That depends. I'm kind of booked."

The King sighed. "Very well. Name your price."

"Oh, it's not a matter of price, Your Wish Granting Majesty. I have work to do and only so much time, and I remember what happened last time I tried to take a shortcut using my old sketchbooks. I'll do this painting of yours if you'll allow me to shoot some snapshots in the Goblin City and use them as reference for my other commissions."

He laughed. "Sarah, I'll happily assign you a gaggle of goblins to use as models if you want. They'll have a field day playing dress-up."

Her fingers itched already. "Then I guess you got yourself an artist."

* * * *

Toby arrived at Sarah's apartment in the afternoon, carrying loads of homework and his own laptop, now working properly again. He raided her fridge and then spotted the sketch she was working on. Sarah had to suppress a grin as her brother jumped up and down like a little boy, barely able to contain his excitement at the so far very crude depiction of a lady elf with physical proportions to appeal to the male imagination. In fact she was taking liberties with the material, toning down the elf chick quite a bit lest the unfortunate woman develop serious spinal problems related to the pull of gravity.

"Oh my god, Sarah, that's fantastic!" Toby shouted while doing a ferret-esque war dance around the room. Bikkit looked on in amazement, quite possibly taking mental notes.

Sarah laughed. "No, it's not. But it's not horrible, and that's good enough for now. Just you wait until I get some texture done and she'll look less like her skin is made from plastic."

"I totally want a copy. I call dibs."

"Oh, I was going to give you a high quality print, actually. Framed, even."

"You rock, Sarah! And it's not even my birthday!"

She put the stylus down next to her tablet and refilled her coffee mug with a grin. "Nope. It's all part of a plan. A very cunning plan. It's a commission for you to give to Sharon, actually."

"A commission? As in, a request job?"

"Yep. Your poofy-haired fairytale godfather asked me to do it for you."

Toby sidled over to sit at the table amidst his pile of notes and textbooks. "You saw the King again?"

"Kinda hard not to," Sarah groused. "Seeing as that he strolled into the coffee shop and sat at my table. How he makes no one else notice those ridiculous outfits is beyond mortal understanding. Also, he was lucky Amanda didn't ravish him right there on the floor."

"Heh, yeah. His Glittery Tightness has got a screwed up sense of fashion, and he'd be right up Amanda's alley, that's for sure. He asked you to do this painting? For me?"

"For Sharon," Sarah confirmed, then paused. "Toby, why do you call him those things?"

"What, glittery?"

"Yeah. It seems kind of derogatory. I mean, you're friends with the guy."

The youth hitched a shoulder. "Habit, I guess. I picked it up from Hoggle sometime. You always told me never to speak his name lest he'd hear it or turn up or something. And those tights are ridiculous."

"Leggings," Sarah corrected her brother. "Tights are for girls and ballet dancers. Men wear leggings."

"Whatever."

She reached for the stylus again and resumed scribbling in tiny highlights in the blue elf lady's hair. "But he can't actually hear us talking here, can he? Or is my place only off limits for glitter poofing?"

Toby watched her work like a hawk with a very personal and vested interest. "I think it's off limits for pretty much everything. The goblins can go here on their own but he's not allowed to tell them to. He explained it to me sometime – basically, the whole no power over you thing means he can't do anything or instigate anything that affects your place or you directly without your permission."

"But he can turn up somewhere that isn't my place just fine? Like, in a coffee shop?"

"Yeah, well, that'd be doing something to the coffee shop, technically."

"So he can turn up but he can't whisk me away unless I permit him to, eh? He can't do anything to me directly unless I let him?"

"That's how I understand it, yeah."

"Guess that explains how he was able to poof me back here from the Underground, I allowed him to." She grinned. "Stop hovering, Toby, I won't get done any faster. Get on that computer of yours and find out where to send the print to."

He drooped. "Yeah... That's gonna be tough. Sharon won't give me her cell number, I doubt she'll give me her address."

"Make her."

"How?"

"Beats me. You're the understudy of the master manipulator, not me, you must have picked up a few tricks over the years."

He shot Sarah a wry smile. "I'm -not- wearing tights. Ever."

* * * *


	9. Thy Heart's Content

Another dream took her that night; Sarah searched through the dancers in the crystal ballroom, brushing past couples and ignoring leering, laughing eyes behind decadent, beautiful masks. The room swirled around her as if she was revolving around herself even when trying to move straight ahead towards where she had last seen the figure in blue, smirking and then disappearing. She caught a glance of herself in a wall mirror as she sped past; a frightened teenage girl in a poofy white dress that defied gravity and common sense, eyes wide at the displays going on around her, the adult things happening at the corners of her eyes.

Hang on. She was not fifteen. She was in her thirties and she knew very well what the courtiers and dancers were playing at behind the veils and behind the draperies and tall columns. She shot a vicious glare at a courtier who leaned in as if to whisper in her ear, and he wisely backed off before she had to get physical about rejecting his suggestions.

Two beautiful women clung to the King's arms and he smiled at her, and then he was gone again, leaving her to pursue –

Hell no. This was a dream. Furthermore, it was -her- dream, not one of the Goblin King's making. He had said as much, that if her dreams of the dance were of his making she would have had no doubt as to his intentions. Her dream, not his. She walked across the room, through the crowd, until she reached the chair that she had once used to smash the crystal wall, the soap bubble, the spell. Sitting down to watch the masquerade unfold, she mused that eating popcorn would have been appropriate.

Sarah tensed at the sensation of a warm breath on her ear and shoulder. She looked up and into the blue eyes of the King, one light, one dark. He purred something but as before, she could not make out the words. His expression was amused and perhaps just a tiny bit surprised. She reached up and ran her fingertips lightly over his cheek; his skin was warm and soft like satin.

"I can't hear you," she told him gently. "But since this is my dream, what do you say we switch to a more universally understood language?"

He offered a murmured reply that had no sound, looking at her under lashes that were several shades darker than his hair.

"Oh, get subtitles or shut up," Sarah murmured back and reached up to pull his face down to hers with one hand while slipping the other to his waist.

The best thing about dreams is that they're private and you can do anything you want in them without concern for the consequences of your actions. Also, there is no such thing as a clumsy or inattentive dream lover.

* * * *

The final drawing had an excellent colour range, with prominent shades of blue, purple, and dark greys, with metallic highlights. And that was all the good there was to say about it as far as Sarah was concerned. She had finished the painting that very morning after waking up from a particularly racy dream. The lady elf stood as if looking down at the viewer, her hip thrust out in a provocative angle that drew the eye to the ornamented belt and loincloth that was her main pieces of clothing. Her full, round, and still rather over-sized breasts were similarly kept decent by leather cups with thin chains connecting them. She wore knee high black leather boots with high heels and to complete the study in ridiculous fantasy outfits, a black hooded cape with holes for her large ears. Her lips were full and pouting, her eyes clouded and suggestive under a small, silver headband.

Amanda studied the print with critical eyes. "Sarah," she said at length. "Sarah, baby, this sucks."

"I know," Sarah sighed. "It's awful. There's no way she can walk in those boots, not to mention fighting or whatever she does for a living. And she better hope it never gets cold at night in that fantasy world of hers."

"I think she's some kind of rogue. A thief, or an assassin, maybe?"

"Who cares? She's an insult to our suffragette foremothers."

Amanda laughed. "Nice paper, though."

"It's a present for the girl Toby has a crush on. From him, obviously. I'm going to get a neat frame for it and hand it over and never think about it again."

"Brushed aluminium. Get a nice, unadorned metal frame. The shine will go good with the grey in the picture. Hey, might as well work with what you got."

"Want to go help me pick one out?"

"Sure thing, baby. You still owe me a tale of drama, old enmity, and gratuitous sex scenes, too. I want it. Particularly the gratuitous sex scenes."

"You're in for such bitter disappointment," Sarah retorted as she put on her coat.

"Doubt it," Amanda beamed. "You're blushing."

Sarah swatted at her. Her cheeks were a little warm, just possibly, but if so, that had nothing to do with what had happened the day before after Amanda left her and the Goblin King at the coffee shop and everything to do with a particularly interesting dream she had that morning before waking up. Will waved at them through the open door to his office as they walked past, and they both waved back and walked on before either of them could be trapped into an editorial discussion.

* * * *

"I don't know what to tell him." Sharon stared at the monitor with a bleak expression. The messenger window reflected the window indifferently, the cursor blinking.

"He's been pretty nice so far, hasn't he?" Nicole brushed a black bang out of her face and peered over her shoulder. The two girls were at the library, enjoying the anonymity of public internet services. Neither of them were paying attention to small shadows moving within other shadows; there was a lot of people coming and going and a fair deal of background noise.

"Yeah," Sharon nodded.

"So what's the problem?"

"Pete will be pissed if I give my personal info to some guy on-line."

Nicole sighed. "You dumped Pete, remember? Again."

"Like that's gonna stop him from getting mad." Sharon fiddled with the mouse pad. "You know how he gets when I talk to someone he doesn't know."

"I know he's a jealous piece of shit," Nicole snorted. "Come on, for all you know Tobias is a stud."

Somewhere nearby, someone snickered childishly.

"Or he's some forty year old stalker who lives in his mother's basement with six cats and a poodle. He says he has a present for me."

Another little chuckling noise rang out, unnoticed by either girl.

"What is it?"

"Hell if I know, but he wants my street address so he can mail it."

If either Sharon or Nicole had had the kind of sight that the Williams siblings did they might have noticed the small, furry figure who scampered onto a table lamp and leaned towards Nicole's ear, whispering.

"You know," Nicole said thoughtfully as an idea struck, "why not give him my street address instead? At worst he'll show up sometime and if he's a fat old man I'll just tell him I have no idea what he's on about and send him on his merry way."

"You wouldn't mind?"

The dark girl shrugged. "Nobody opens my mail. It's fine, Sharon."

Sharon nodded and began to type out her reply. "Thanks. I owe you one, Nicole."

* * * *

Toby chewed on his ball pen miserably. By all logic and common sense he should have been comfortable and writing with something more, well, classy than a blue ball pen nicked from some fellow student or other during some probably quite dull sermon by some dull professor. He sat in a very comfortable, high-backed leather chair, at a beautifully carved wooden desk that advertised elegance and masculinity both, large and impressive. An array of quills, from goose and swan to some he'd be afraid to ask about sat in a pen holder next to small vials of inks in various shades, predominantly sepia and black. Light fell gently from a crystal chandelier overhead and through large, open windows with an excellent view of a pleasant and luxuriant maze garden. This was the personal library and office of a wealthy man with good taste; a nineteenth century refuge; it was the working desk of the Goblin King who simply did not happen to be using it at the moment. It was also one of the few places that Toby knew of that he could work in peace and quiet, undisturbed by mischievous goblins or curious parents.

"'Tis but an accompanying letter," Sir Didymus, reclining on the chair opposite, observed. The terrier-squirrel-fox goblin knight looked somewhat out of place in the furniture designed for people of considerably grander size but carried himself with a certain energetic dignity nonetheless. He was also shamelessly taking advantage of the well stocked liquor cabinet, helping himself to a snifter of excellent brandy the label of which looked like it could have been a prop in a Lord of the Rings movie. "I have seen thee write far more complicated essays for thy school work, my prince. What is it that troubles thee so?"

"I'm not your prince," Toby muttered, avoiding the question.

"Whatever thou dost say," Didymus acknowledged good-naturedly. "Thou art dodging my inquiry, Sir Toby."

The youth made another attempt at biting the pen in half before replying. "It's not just a letter. It's for Sharon. Just to let her know that Sarah made this painting for her based off her own sketch and that I want her to have it, but – "

"Ah, thou dost desire to impart a knowledge to the fair maiden that 'tis a token of romance and affection, I'd wager?"

"Well, yeah." Toby sighed again. "I've never written this kind of stuff before. What the hell am I supposed to write?"

"Thy heart's content," the little knight declared with finality.

"You make it sound easy."

"'Tis!" Sir Didymus leapt off his chair and waved one paw in the air dramatically. "Confess thy true feelings for her, lay thine heart at her feet, wrap her in words of tender love! A gentleman fears not what is in his heart, my prince, nor does he fear the scorn of others for wearing his lady's colours on his sleeve as he rides forth into battle!"

"Yeah, well, I'm not exactly going to war here, I'm just sending her a present. I just kinda need to get her to understand that I wouldn't mind, you know, actually meeting her or at least seeing a picture of what she really looks like, maybe talk a bit on the phone, or go out and have coffee somewhere."

"Then that is what thou must write," the knight asserted. "'Tis no challenge for thee to speak thy feelings to me, surely thou art capable of putting it to paper."

The paper in question was beautiful, white and thick, and fortunately void of any royal crests. He had picked through the desk drawers for a while before finding something that was indeed pristine and without royal associations. It was also hopelessly blank and he had a vague feeling that it was staring back at him in dismay. "Maybe I should ask His Nibs," he stalled.

Sir Didymus laughed. "I wouldst not recommend it, Sir Toby. In affairs of the heart, my liege is – assertive."

"'Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I'll be your slave' isn't the best pick-up line ever," Toby agreed reluctantly. "Right. Dear Sharon. This is a painting that my sister made from your picture. I really liked your picture. I have printed a copy of it and put on my wall."

"Over my bed so that I may look upon it as I lay me down to rest," the fox inserted.

"Lay me down to rest. Er. As I go to sleep. I thought you might like to see what Leggylas would look like if painted by a professional artist – "

"That is a most curious name for a maiden, I dare say."

"I'm not writing that, Didymus." The ball pen made little scratching noises on the thick paper. "I would like to get to know you better. Maybe we could go out and have coffee some day? You can bring your friend if that makes you feel more comfortable."

"Very good," Sir Didymus acknowledged, pouring himself another brandy. "Do not forget to ask for a token of her love to wear into battle, my prince. And do mention doves. Ladies adore doves."

* * * *

She was dressed like she was going to war, Sarah mused, looking at herself in her bedroom mirror. She liked to prepare for every eventuality, and going to a place where nothing is impossible, there were quite a few eventualities to consider. The last time she had been to the Goblin City her fifteen-year-old self and her companions had left it in piles of rubble, ruined buildings, and frightened chickens. From the looks she had snatched through a castle window that night Bikkit's little escapades first became known to her, the city had been rebuilt since then. Regardless, it was a mostly medieval place, taken out of a fairytale book, and not likely to have such commodities as indoor plumbing (toilet paper had been high on her list of things to pack). Electrical outlets were not an option, and she had packed spare batteries for the digital camera and a thermos bottle of coffee. The Goblin City was prone to be full of goblins, though, so she had also stocked up on cheap candies and plastic trinkets to distribute in an attempt to bribe or otherwise convince the residents not to steal the clothes off her back and model peacefully instead.

Sarah picked Bikkit up and put her little harness for walking on and attached the leash. The ferret wriggled obligingly, not really minding the harness although she tended to walk more like a furry snake than a leaping, bounding thing while wearing it. She seated the ferret in her shirt, to peek out over the neck opening of her wind breaker, and took a few deep breaths before turning to the mirror. "Pish and Tosh, I need you."

When the Goblin King had given his permission that Sarah could do a reference shoot in the Goblin City he had likely intended for her to call upon him to bring her there. She was tempted but at the same time she felt a certain hesitation when it came to relying upon the enigmatic whatever-he-was for anything; he had been a hovering shadow in her mind for too many years for her to treat him like a casual acquaintance now.

The mirror shimmered and swirled and then shone faintly as the two heads of the great, blue German Shepherd became visible. They wagged their tail at the sight of Sarah. "Hello!" they chorused.

"Hi guys! I bought you biscuits. I also need to ask a favour," Sarah greeted them in return.

"Thank you, Sarah," Pish smiled.

"What do you need?" Tosh inquired.

Sarah pointed at several boxes of dog treats in various shapes and colours that sat on the vanity. "All yours, guys. I need to go back to the Labyrinth, and I was wondering if there is a way to skip the part where I have to crawl on my hands and knees and end up in the castle."

The image disappeared from the mirror as the two-headed guide dog appeared in the room accompanied by a few small sounds like soap bubbles bursting. "We can send you," Pish agreed.

"As long as the King doesn't mind," Tosh added. "It is his domain."

Bikkit wriggled curiously, eager to inspect the new presence. Sarah held on to her. "Well, he said I could go and that he would even assign some goblins to help me, so I figure that he doesn't mind."

Pish grinned approvingly. "Shall we take you to him, then?"

Tosh sniffed a box of bright red chewing bones. "Or did you want to go somewhere else?"

Sarah laughed as boxes of dog goodies began to disappear off the bed with random little pops. "I want to go to the Goblin City. There's this fountain at the centre, that'd be fine. Please don't put me near that awful gate guardian robot thing."

* * * *


	10. Like a Friggin Tourist

The spires of the Castle Beyond the Goblin City soared towards the sky of the Underground, currently a pleasant shade of greenish blue with a few white puffs drifting about lazily, reflecting the mood of its ruler. Like a twisted vision of a fantasy artist on too much caffeine, the castle overlooked the realm with tall towers and flying buttresses, and a rather prominent disregard for the laws of physics. It was a very visible testament to the all-seeing presence of the mercurial king of the realm, currently seated, legs up, on a window sill in the very highest tower of them all, letting the wild wind blow his black cape about and make a (bigger) mess of his platinum hair. A number of goblins in various sizes and shapes were keeping him company but in spite of the din their games created Jareth felt a subtle prickling sensation at the edge of his awareness.

He mentally investigated while sweeping a lazy glance over the Labyrinth. It was a curiously blue sensation that he had felt once or twice in the past; not hostile, not intrusive, just sort of there, and minding its own business. A traveller's guide, not prone to interfering, and certainly not to create disorder – or indeed, order in his perfectly orchestrated chaos. The King relaxed in his mind and smiled to himself; there was another presence, following the blue one, a human presence that he had expected to call upon himself for transportation. He'd never quite figure her out but he would allow her to have her way this time.

She was doing what he wanted, after all, even if she was taking liberties with the finer details of his plan.

* * * *

If a writer had to pick three words with which to describe the Goblin City, these might turn out to be 'picturesque', 'chaotic', and 'bloody mess', except that would be four words and not three. The smells of the place hit her nostrils the instant she materialised, with the subtlety of an anvil dropped from great height; burning firewood and charcoal smoke rising from stoves and cooking fires to escape through the twisted chimneys before falling back down to create a backdrop for an olfactory assault composed from boiling beans, fur, sloshing mud, and only the gods would know what else. On the up side, Sarah mused, there was no smell of car emissions. She inhaled deeply and then looked around, taking in the sights with the eyes of an artist this time.

Limestone was the favoured choice of building material, although the occasional half-timbered building peeked out here and there. The angles of the houses were casual and disorderly, as if put together willy-nilly by drunken architects, but given the fact that they were indeed still standing there had to be some underlying order to the chaos, somewhere. Signs rattled outside some buildings – literacy was not common to goblins as far as she knew of but anyone could figure out the meaning of a drawing of a bunch of grapes and a cup, or a horseshoe and an anvil. There was straw in the gutter, mixed with sand, mud, road apples, and the occasional fruit peel. The fountain plaza was a busy thoroughfare and residents were coming and going, shouting and talking, and in one case, snoring. However, unlike a woodcut from an early print of Grimm's Fairytales, these people were not human; they were twisted, furry, lanky, squat, fat, thin, pointy-eared, bulbous-nosed, horned, helmeted, hideous, adorable –

"This is where you wanted to go?" Pish inquired, breaking Sarah's line of thought.

"The fountain is right there," Tosh added.

"Yep. This is exactly where I wanted to go. I love you guys."

The blue dog wagged its tail. "Do you want us to take you somewhere else later?"

"Well, I'll want to go home sometime but it'll be a while. Can I call upon you?"

Pish nodded. "Any mirror will do."

"As long as the Goblin King does not object," Tosh warned.

"I am definitely going to try to stay on His Majesty's good side, don't worry. I'll see you later, guys." She hugged the blue dog goodbye and watched it fade away, out of existence. Bikkit propped her little head up out of Sarah's shirt to stare after the vanishing canine with an expression of disregard as if to say, 'good riddance'. She was not a dog loving ferret.

"Right," Sarah told her. "I'll let you down to play in a moment but right now you're staying here in my shirt or I swear, I'll tie ribbons to your whiskers."

The ferret looked largely unfazed by the threat.

She readied the digital camera and checked its settings as well as the battery lifetime. She would have to filter out of the of the red before using the finished pictures, or the lighting would end up looking odd, given the unusual tinge of the Underground sunlight. Fortunately she lived in the digital age and photo manipulation was something every other kid could do these days. She snapped a few quick pictures of the fountain in all its crude glory and adjusted the sharpness slightly until she was satisfied.

Sarah started walking at a brisk pace, away from the plaza, while Bikkit scampered on to her shoulder to sit like a queen surveying her realm, sniffing every breeze curiously. Last time Sarah had been here she had been a bit preoccupied, running for her life and dodging live ammunition – the goblins inside the cannon balls had screamed with glee as they flew – and rather terrified that she was running out of time. Today she had all the time she could possibly want and the residents were not giving her as much as a second glance in passing. She was going to find the perfect shooting location for this little adventure, and she was going to enjoy the sights along the way.

* * * *

"And how goes the writing of heartfelt declarations?"

Toby looked up from the painfully crafted letter still sitting on the desk, his bright blue eyes meeting their two-hued counterparts in the face of the King, leaning against the study's door casually. Sporting his often favoured burnt sienna leather coat with the single shoulder plate, Jareth looked to be in a good mood. In fact, he was grinning. Sir Didymus, on the other hand, saw nothing for the brave little knight had fallen asleep in an armchair after defeating the brandy bottle. He was snoring lightly.

"I'm about done although I think it sucks," the youth replied honestly.

"Tch. I'm sure it's perfectly naïve and heartfelt and quite splendid for its purpose." The Goblin King strolled across the study and made a sweeping gesture at the tall, arched windows. "Come, come, Toby, tell me what you see."

Toby put the ball pen in the pen holder next to the array of luxurious quills and walked over. At first he could not tell what was so interesting about the view; it was a pleasant, sunny day in the Underground and the Goblin City far below was bustling with activity, but that was nothing he had not seen before and certainly nothing that would serve to plaster that particular smug grin on to his friend and mentor's thin lips.

"Look by the water mill, Toby," Jareth said patiently.

Toby tilted his head for a better view. The wheels of a large watermill churned the waters of a small pond surrounded by an apple orchard at the end of which lay a quaint, but charming half-timbered cottage from the chimney of which smoke curled gently towards the sky. "Isn't that new?"

"Yes, yes, it is."

He glanced back at the King. "I don't think I've ever seen you actually add anything to the city before, you know."

Jareth folded his arms across his chest and laughed, a soft, rippling sound. "Oh, you haven't? I wonder why that might be."

Toby frowned. "It's always been like it was for Sarah before."

"Yes?"

He gaped. "Sarah is here?"

"Nothing slips past you." The King was smirking, obviously pleased with himself.

Toby felt dizzy. "What the hell is Sarah doing here? That's... Oh my god, I'm gonna throttle her."

Jareth laughed again. "You'll find that difficult to do from up here."

* * * *

The watermill on the edge of the Goblin City was rustic and beautiful and surrounded by pleasant, sunlight dappled apple orchards on three sides. A small river ran through, providing water for the mill pond, and carefully tended flowerbeds lined the little road that lead to the miller's house. It was idyllic, fantastic, perfect, and Sarah had filled one USB key already when a tell-tale swirl of glitter appeared right in front of her. She stopped flat, expecting to witness the dramatic entrance of the monarch of the realm. Instead, however, Toby dropped out of nowhere, nearly falling on his backside as he materialised; he had quite obviously been leaning on something that had not been transported along. He also looked rather surprised.

"Hi Tobes," she offered, puzzled.

Toby flailed and finally found his balance. "I can't believe this! You're here! All those times you said I couldn't go, all those warnings, and here you are, walking around like a friggin' tourist!"

Sarah's temper reared its head. "Back up a sec, kiddo! You're the one who's been coming and going here for a decade or more without bothering to let anyone else know so get off my case."

"Yeah well," Toby pouted. "You'd have ripped my face off if I had said anything."

"With good reason. I thought this place was dangerous."

"It's not fair. I come here for years and it always looks the same and then you turn up and the city starts -growing-. This watermill has never been here before."

Sarah could only hope she looked more intelligent than she felt at the moment. "You mean that this place, this entire orchard is new? And that I made it, somehow?"

Toby shrugged. "Well, it sure wasn't me."

"Ho snap," she said, impressed. "Yeah, I can definitely see me imagining something along those lines. Actually, I think I did something like this once. But Toby, when I paint something it stays on the paper, it doesn't materialise out of thin air. I think you're moping up the wrong tree here."

He opened his mouth and then shut it again before taking on a sheepish expression. "I'm being an ass."

Sarah swatted her brother's arm lightly. "It's okay. I'll let you live. This time. You can help me take pictures if you like."

Toby frowned. "I hate to burst anyone's bubble, Sis, but are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, what if someone gets a hold of the pics somehow? That's going to be one heck of an explanation to come up with."

"No one would believe it. They'd think it was staged with puppets or that I had manipulated the photos. You gotta love the digital age."

"I guess. Okay, what do you need?" He was obviously still feeling silly about his outburst of sibling jealousy.

Sarah grinned. "Goblins. Lots of goblins. Somebody promised me a gaggle of goblins."

* * * *

"Did she say the words?" A toad-faced goblin peered out between two grey-garbed knees.

"Nope," another replied from a bush. "She's talking about geese."

"Geese?"

"A gaggle is a lot of geese," the bush goblin replied confidently.

"I'm not gonna be a goose!" the first objected with a horrified expression, clutching a knee for support.

The owner of the knees peered down. "You're going to be a frog in a minute if you don't keep your voice down."

"Eep!"

"Now pay attention," the Goblin King said. "You're going to learn how to be elves."

* * * *

When at last Sarah was running out of storage space for pictures and had finished off her thermos bottle of coffee she was exhausted. She also had no idea where Bikkit had taken off to. The goblins had been adorable in their little green elf hats – where had those come from, anyhow? – and the impressions of the day were piling up in her mind, waiting to be sorted and processed before she could keel over for some much deserved rest. It was definitely time to pack up and call it a day. She looked at the small army of very helpful and very enthusiastic goblins that had appeared out of nowhere and failed to see her brother among them.

"Octavius, did you see where Toby went?"

The goblin twirled his baseball cap. "Yep. He gone home. Truf took him."

"Oh all right. I should get going too, really. You guys have been awesome. Would you help me find Bikkit and then take us back?"

"Leaving so soon?"

She spun around at the sound of the silky, accented voice. The Goblin King, in all his glittery majesty, was leaning against an apple tree, arms crossed over his chest, looking like he might have been standing there a while, watching the scene unfold.

"A pity. I hope everything was to your satisfaction?" he inquired.

"It's been fantastic. You've certainly done everything I asked for."

"Yes, I do have that habit, do I not?" He straightened and stalked towards her; she fought down the urge to back away accordingly.

"That's close enough, Your Highness. That intimidating prowl of yours was a lot more unsettling when I was fifteen."

His eyes sparkled. "You've certainly grown up, Sarah. Might I remind you that now you are on -my- turf?"

"Oh right. Do I scream and flee up a tree or will cowering be good enough?"

The King laughed and then said, "I am quite pleased with the commission."

"I'm not," Sarah replied honestly. "It's awful. But it's what you asked for."

He arched one winged eyebrow. "And what about it do you not like?"

"It's sex. Blatant, unashamed teenage wish fulfillment." The irony of that statement, made in present company, hit her a second later and she added, "I like my paintings of people to have a little more substance, that's all."

"You'd be surprised at what teenagers wish for. It is often very droll." His voice carried the certainty of long familiarity.

Something in that tone made Sarah flare up; she too sold dreams for a living, after a fashion. "That's not true. Teenagers have hell trying to sort out what's going on with everything and growing up. I just don't like the way that certain game companies use questionable ideals and plentiful boobage to hook the kids into playing another hour."

"Plentiful boobage?"

"I'm not having this argument. Not after what you did to my vampire painting. It's bad enough that my editor wants me to do sparkly vampires, I'm not going to go into wish fulfilment at -all- where you're concerned."

He chuckled. "Very well. Are you ready to return to your home, then?"

She looked around. "In a moment. I need to find my ferret."

"I rather enjoy her little visits. Her wishes are of course quite easy to grant. Why, currently she is chasing a mouse through a chicken coop, scattering eggs and feathers everywhere. Do you really desire to interrupt her fun?"

Sarah groaned. "She'll be all right?"

"I promise."

"Chicken coop?" She shot the King a glance. "You're giving her a bath before you send her home, I hope."

A soft chuckle accompanied her as the glitter rose, and the yard of the watermill faded into apple-scented mist before taking on the vastly more familiar shape and appearance of her living room. She scattered her belongings in small piles. First, start the laptop up and begin the transfer of image files to the hard drive. Then, put away the clothing and the roll of toilet paper, and wash out the empty thermos bottle. Switch to the other USB key and empty that one out too. Sorting the images would be time consuming affair indeed. Well, then she knew what she'd be doing in the morning. For now, shower and bed.

* * * *


	11. Pimping Isn't Cool

Gauzy draperies spilled from the ceiling far overhead, casting a dream-like quality over the dreamscape – fancy that! – of her ballroom dream, by now so familiar that Sarah felt she was almost a regular. Crystalline mirrors and glittery surfaces sparkled and shone, and the dancers, grotesque and alluring in their masks, whirled around her, pressing against her teenage self, and tugging at her ridiculously poufy white dress for attention, making silent offers of an adult nature. The eternal game of cat and mouse went on, apparently night after night, and as always, she was the mouse, innocent in white, thinking that she was chasing the cat in sparkling blue until such a time as that he turned around and caught her.

She was getting a little fed up with this dream. Even if it had, ahem, interesting variations at times.

Take, for example, the two women clinging to the King. A brunette in a grotesque, horned white and gold goblin mask that rendered her face a mask of disdain and hunger, vampire-like. The fan that she held up as if to hide her emotions was too small and reminded Sarah of a handkerchief. The other woman, her neck and shoulders framed in abundant red curls, wore an expression of undisguised orgasmic lust, her pale face only barely concealed by a dark red half-mask and her body plastered against his as if she was about ready to drag him down to the floor with her right there.

Was she supposed to be impressed by his virility? Jealous of the women swooning at the faintest brushing against them of his glittering frock coat?

The King's strange eyes locked on hers and he raised his gloved hand as always, stepping towards her. And as always, the two women tried to cling to him as he ignored them entirely. Was this where her teenage self would be flattered and dazed that he would pick her over them?

Sarah stepped forwards and caught the red-head's eyes with her own. "Don't you have -any- dignity? Get a grip on yourself, woman."

She felt the King's chuckle, warm breath on her shoulder, but like always, she could not hear his voice. He smiled, she noticed out of the corner of one eye, no doubt inviting her to come away with him and ignore the confusion of his discarded fan girls.

"Look at yourself. You don't even exist if he's not looking at you," she told the red-haired woman in the pale rose dress. Then she spun around and faced the King. "And as for you, you seriously need to cut back on whatever you're reading in your spare time. You think using women until something better comes along is seductive? I've got news for you, hotpants. Pimping it isn't romantic."

Fuming, she went looking for a chair.

* * * *

The walls of the cubicle offered some shelter from prying eyes and ears and her friend certainly did not look like she objected to distraction as Sarah walked in, bearing libations of a caffeinated nature. Wearing her reading glasses, Amanda put down the page of manuscript she was currently editing and stuck her red pen behind one ear, schoolmistress style. "Sarah, I worship at your feet."

The brunette eyed the page; it had remarkable amounts of red on it. "That bad, huh?"

"Worse. This guy clearly suffers from Tolkienesque delusions and his blond, beautiful elf prince who just happens to be an expert marksman has all the personality of a wet brick."

"Ouch."

Amanda took the proffered coffee cup and inhaled deeply with a gratified sigh. "Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm a literature snob, but for heavens' sake, this guy should just admit to himself that he has a crush on Orlando Bloom and be done with it. So what's with the sleepy face? Long night?"

Sarah flopped on to Amanda's desk and dangled her legs. "Disturbing dreams and waking up to a ferret that reeked of peach shampoo."

"You're not supposed to use perfumed shampoo with animals or children," Amanda observed conscientiously.

"Tell that to my ferret sitter. I bet he thought it was funny."

"Peaches are funny?"

"Old in-joke."

"Oh." Amanda sipped her coffee and then brightened. "Oh! I got my tattoo! Want to see it?"

"Depends on where you got it," Sarah grinned.

"Bless your gutter mind. It's on my leg." Amanda pulled up her trouser leg and kicked off her shoe. On her ankle a small winged fairy with a mischievous expression was captured in flight, the black lines accentuated by a few strategic flower petals in blue.

"Ooh, I like it. That's going to look awesome in summer when you wear sandals."

"Yep. It didn't even hurt all that much and the redness will be gone in a week or two. I'm really happy with it."

Sarah fidgeted with her cup. "So, can you spare me ten minutes before going back to reading about Orlando Bloom's blonde sexiness or whatever?"

"I'll give you the rest of the day if it gets me out of reading more of this crap. What's on your mind, dirty and depraved as it is?"

"It's that dream I told you about. I keep having it, and it's driving me nuts."

"Yessss," Amanda hissed with glee. "Have you caught Prince Charming yet?"

Sarah snorted. "Caught, held down, and shagged under the buffet table. That version was rather fun."

"I bet!"

Sarah put her empty cup down on the desk. "Basically, it's the same dream every time. I'm in the ballroom during a Venetian style masquerade, and I'm chasing the King. He's trying to tell me something but I can't make out a peep of what he's saying. Then I get to pretty much pick the ending. Last night I ended up telling his fan girls off for being stereotypical and stupid. It's driving me up the wall that I can't seem to find out what it is he's trying to tell me. If this is some kind of lucid dream where I can pick what's going to happen, shouldn't I be able to decide to get him subtitled or something?"

Amanda took the pen down from behind her ear and tapped it against her lip. "Well, your subconscious mind is definitely trying to tell you something and for some reason you're not hearing it. You have any idea what sort of thing he might be saying in general?"

"Probably some romantic stuff."

"Which you totally don't want to hear because Sarah Williams is divorced and lives alone and don't need a man to mess up her nicely ordered little life?"

"Bitch."

Amanda grinned. "Okay, and this prince or king or whatever he's supposed to be is really the guy we met at the coffee shop, right? The guy you told me you don't trust around Toby. Same guy you've been dressing up in glam rock outfits on paper for like twenty years?"

Sarah groaned. "Yeah, I can hear where this is going."

"So, any chance of it happening?"

"Not likely. He doesn't seem to hate me as much I thought he would but I don't think he trusts me any more than I trust him and that sure isn't saying a lot. We have bad history and besides, he's a manipulative control freak."

"And hot."

"Yeah."

Amanda spun her chair around. "Well, if the dreams are kind of lucid, your best choice is to go with it. You're trying to tell yourself something, and your waking self has a bazillion objections and reasons not to listen. So push the guy up against a wall in your next dream and tell him exactly why you think he shouldn't bother trying to weasel into your life again. It's your dream so you don't need to worry about being embarrassed or pissing him off, after all. Then your subconscious can come up with a reply to that if it still thinks his hotness is worth fighting for."

Sarah's lips twitched at the notion of shoving Jareth, dream or reality, up against a wall; she was reminded of how he had done that to her, a long time ago, in the tunnels under the Labyrinth. "That's a good idea, actually."

"All my ideas are good, it's just that I'm horribly unappreciated by my fans," Amanda stated. "You let me know how that goes, okay? If nothing else, it'll be more erotic than this piece of drivel." She waved the manuscript with an exasperated look.

* * * *

Toby tried to focus on the textbook on the table; success was highly debatable. The university library was quiet and orderly, with few distractions, but his mind kept wandering off topic with a persistence that would have made a six year old on sugar jealous. When someone across the table started clicking a ball pen repeatedly it was the straw that broke the camel's back. "Could you -please- not do that," he hissed and looked up, in that order.

"Ingenious device, really," Jareth mused, clicking the pen a few more times for good measure. "So much more convenient in daily use than quills or fountain pens."

Toby face palmed. "I'm not getting any studying done today, am I?"

"Oh, am I interrupting?" An innocent air surrounded the Goblin King, casually dressed in a white frilly shirt with a black velvet vest and grey leggings. As usual, no one else seemed to pay him much notice. He stopped clicking the pen and put it down, and then, to Toby's frustration, started to toy with his pendant instead. "How rude of me. I just wanted to ask you to clarify an expression to me."

"Okay. But I really have to study after that."

Jareth grinned. "What exactly is 'pimping'?"

Toby did a visible double take at his companion. "Come again?"

A winged eyebrow shot up. "I have been accused of doing it. I should like to know what it is."

Helpless to stop himself from snickering, Toby gestured at the King's outfit. "I guess you look the part except you need more bling bling, oh, and a purple fur coat and hat with a ridiculous ostrich feather. Pimps are men who solicit for prostitutes."

Jareth sniffed. "I am a fashion challenged procurer?"

Toby snickered. "Yep. And nope, because it's also come to mean someone who attracts girls like, well, like a pimp, someone who can boss girls around and make them do whatever he wants."

"I see." The King's lips formed a thin line of disapproval.

"The way I see it, you got told off for dressing extravagantly and treating women like possessions," Toby explained. "Of course I haven't the first clue who in the Underground would have the guts to criticise your royal wardrobe. There's no such thing as a women's lib goblin movement, is there?"

Jareth pinched the bridge of his nose. "If there was I'd have its ringleaders doing laps around the Bog of Eternal Stench."

* * * *

Sarah made tea and made comfy on the sofa with chocolate chip cookies and a small bowl of brightly coloured gummy bears. She pulled her laptop up on one knee and settled in to watch a slide show of her newly acquired hoard of stock photos from the Underground. Hoggle took up camp in the other end of the sofa, close enough that he could watch the photos on the monitor but far enough that he might retain his air of dignified pouting.

"Oh, stop it," Sarah teased him, wiggling one panda slipper covered foot as if she might kick his shin with it if he didn't. Bikkit popped out from under the sofa and promptly tried to drag her foot away. "Ow, let go, you little monster!"

The dwarf's meaty lip twitched. Even such well rehearsed grumpiness as his was not ferret antics proof.

Sarah managed to secure her foot and tucked it in under herself. "Anyhow, these are the first pictures I took. They're from the plaza at the centre of the Goblin City – "

"I's been there," Hoggle muttered. "I knows what it looks like."

Sarah tilted her head. "I always wondered about that fountain, though. It looks like – "

"I knows what it looks like."

"So why does it look like – "

He blushed. "Well, that's your fault, Missy!"

Sarah grinned. "I kinda figured that I made it up somehow. Like the bookend and the fox plushie and all the other stuff from my room that turned up in the Underground."

The dwarf was crimson, a hue that did not go very well with his bright, baby blue eyes.

"It's the egg and the hen all over. Which came first? The toys or the Underground? Did I make up those things based on stuff I had in my room, or did I get the toys because they looked like things from the Underground?" She peered at her friend. "I guess I'll have to ask the King about that sometime."

"You shouldn't!"

She clicked 'next' on the slide show. "This is taken right below the castle. There's this adorable little row of cottages leaning against each other like they could fall over like dominoes if you kicked them from the right angle. Oi! Bikkit! Drop that this instant!"

The ferret shot her owner a look of pure innocence before scooting away with a stolen gummy bear. Sarah got up and put the bowl out of reach of four-legged thieves; sugar was the last thing she wanted Bikkit to overdose on, in part because a sugar fuelled ferret was a truly frightening notion and in part because ferret digestion does not agree very well with sugar in the first place.

Hoggle clicked several times before pausing in his viewing. "That's one ugly goblin. In one ugly hat."

She peeked. "I don't even know that goblin's name. He was funny. He kept saying 'ribbit' like a frog and looking like he expected lightning to strike out of the clear blue sky or something. The hats are props, they were supposed to be elves."

"I ain't ever seen an elf wearin' a hat like that."

"I've never seen an elf, period, but I'm going for a look kinda like Santa's elves for this project. You know, small, green, cute, and busy."

"Ain't nothing cute about goblins either."

"Geez, Hoggle, what's wrong with you today? You're not still pissed that I went there in the first place, are you?"

He huffed. "It ain't a playground. You gots no idea what you's toyin' with. Now me, I ain't been back since you smashed that castle and I ain't goin', either."

"That's because you're afraid that the King is going to toss you in the Bog if you do," Sarah reasoned. "Honestly, if he was going to do that he'd probably have gotten around to it by now."

"I ain't given him the chance. I'm a coward and I knows it. I'm fine where I am, it ain't much but it's home, and it ain't got no high and mighty King of Hedgehog Hairdos in it."

Sarah chewed on a gummy bear, photos momentarily forgotten. "You know, I always wondered why you're so sure that there'll be hell to pay if the King catches you, while Sir Didymus and Ludo seem to be doing just fine. You'd think it'd be equal measures of punishment if it came to that."

The dwarf grunted. "The knight ain't done nothing he weren't supposed ta be doin', and the Royal Rat don't care what a walking carpet goes and does. Ludo's too dumb ta be scared and Sir Didymus, well, he's gotta do what a knight's gotta do."

"Like rescuing damsels in distress and guarding bridges just because they're there. Yeah, it makes sense in a kind of twisted Monty Python way," Sarah agreed. "It's not fair, though."

"Life ain't fair," Hoggle agreed and finished off the gummy bears.

* * * *


	12. A Manipulative Bastard

A/N: You get this chapter early since I seem to have caught ebola virus or something similarly entertaining, rendering me a sniffling, coughing wreck on the couch. Clearly this is the time to bask in feedback and reviews, and to write more! Don't worry, folks, we haven't heard the last about that certain buffet table (can a piece of furniture be counted as 'most popular non-leading role' in a story, anyhow?)

------

"You are a figment of my imagination," Sarah told the King as they traversed the floor of the crystal ballroom, his gloved hands leading her into the dance. "If the real you wanted to tell me something he'd be smart enough to just send a goblin with a note. You're just a manifestation of my subconscious fantasies."

The King tilted his head slightly, the blue streaks in his hair catching the light, and never missed a step in the dance, supporting her gently whenever she did.

Sarah sighed. "Amanda, I freaking hate you for suggesting this. Right. Okay, Goblin King, you're gorgeous and sexy but I'm getting really sick and tired of this dream. I don't trust you one bit and there's no way in hell I'd get tangled up with the real you. I'd get burned so hard I'd be smelling barbecue for months. You're a manipulative control freak with an oversized ego and a sadistic streak to match. And what the hell is with those pants anyway?"

His odd eyes were locked on hers intently; the air was thick with the tension of a kiss that was almost happening. The thirteen hour clock began to chime.

"Besides, what kind of grown man has the hots for a fifteen year old? Seriously, if you were trying to get into my pants back then, that's just twisted. And that whole fear me, love me, your slave thing? That's got to be the most screwed pick-up line in existence. You realise that if you'd said something like, 'so, I'll drop the kid off at your place and then we can go out for a movie' I'd totally have fallen into your arms, right? I might have shouted a bit about the cleaners and the other crap you pulled but I'd have gone for it in the end."

Faces spun in a circle around them as the other dancers crowded in, pressing against them, swirling and garish. Sarah ignored them – and that chair did look tempting – and clung to the blue velvet coat of her silent dance partner.

"Thing is – Jareth," she allowed herself to speak his name for the first time in decades, "I'm not at all sure what you're up to. I thought you'd given up and gone away when I stopped having this dream but now I know that you just latched on to Toby instead and left me alone. I don't even know -what- you are. All I know is that if I'm back in this ballroom again every other night then we're clearly not through with each other, even if you told me you didn't send the dreams. And if you're going to be a part of my life again, somehow, then I want to know the rules."

As always, the King of her ballroom dream offered no reply.

* * * *

Large, green eyes looked up at him under dark lashes, clouded by fear and desire. Her rose lips parted ever so slightly in a silent whisper, a wordless wish that he was only too willing to fulfil. Supple and soft like silk, the tip of her tongue slipped out to explore his lips while her fingers brushed over his cheek; he could feel the soft scrape of her fingernails against his skin. He reached for her, wanting her body pressed against his, wanting –

She had fur.

Jareth's eyes flashed open and he found himself glowered at by a ferret who had just been in the process of giving his face a fond tongue bath when she suddenly got squeezed. Princess hopped away, insulted, to curl up at his feet instead.

He fell back amongst the pillows of his bed. "Oh bloody hell."

He pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his eyes, banishing the enticing images of his dream now hopelessly entangled with a raspy little tongue and the not unpleasant but quite distinctive scent of ferret. Then he sat back up and reached for his would-be caretaker and scratched her ears until she forgave him for his rude reaction to her tender efforts.

Jareth put Princess down gently before leaping from the bed, pausing only to shrug into a long robe before heading barefoot out into the corridors outside.

* * * *

The apple trees of the orchard were taking on shape nicely as Sarah dabbed paint upon paint, going for a misty effect as if they were a little unreal around the edges. Later on, she would add more detailed foliage and hints of ripe fruit but she would not commit to such effort until she had the elfin figures in the foreground done; time was money, even if she loved her work, and sometimes, compositions just did not work out. Life was a lot simpler with PhotoShop magic, though – no paints to be cleaned up, no dirty brushes, no chemical smells around the apartment. Of course the paintings did not get the texture that real canvas would provide, either, but for illustrative purposes, digital painting was definitely the way to go in Sarah's opinion. The ability to undo a bodged stroke or work on a layer beneath the top strokes – oh, yes, those were the little things that made her life so much easier.

Painting had a certain meditative quality, a tranquillity that bordered upon Zen. Each dab of a digital brush added another layer of detail to the painting, the many little blobs of colour coming together to form a greater whole. She preferred to do her shading and backgrounds manually rather than create brushes that would do the major part of the work for her but might cost her some of the handmade feel; and painting leaves dab by dab was time consuming. Furthermore, it offered her plenty of time to be alone in her head with her thoughts.

She at least had the wits about her to look sheepish when she realised that Anastasia had been sitting on the table next to the tablet, waving her hand in front of Sarah's eyes for at least a minute or two. "Er, hi."

"Are you busy, Sarah?" the goblin girl asked.

She reached for her coffee mug, and realised that its contents had gone way cold. She stood and emptied it out in the kitchen sink. "Yeah, but it's okay. I can use a break, really. What's up?"

Anastasia peeked at the monitor. "Ooh. Is that the new orchard?"

"Yep." Sarah filled fresh coffee – nectar of the higher pantheon and all the little saints and angels – into the mug. "Like it?"

"Yes! It's very pretty and it's fun to ride the waterwheel!"

"Oh, I meant the painting."

The goblin peeked again. "Pretty colours," she concluded. Of course, the painting was mostly dabs of colour at this stage. "Do you like me?"

Sarah blinked. "What?"

Anastasia fidgeted. "Well, do you like me? Do you trust me?"

"Sure? We've been friends for a long time, haven't we? I'd hardly let you come and go as you liked if I minded having you around. Us girls got to stick together."

"Okay. 'Cause I got picked because you trust me." She was radiant with pride.

"You got picked? For what?"

"To fetch you," Anastasia declared with the cheerful innocence of someone who did not realise that Sarah might have wanted to know that she was going, not to mention where she was going, and possibly might have wanted to change out of her pyjamas and panda slippers before she disappeared from her apartment in a small cloud of pink glitter.

"Whoa, back up," Sarah dropped her coffee mug in mid-dimensional transit. "Holy shi--!"

The fresh, pleasant scent of flowering lilacs hit her nostrils and the chill night breeze pounced on her thin clothing. Completely unprepared for her sudden reality switch, Sarah fell to her knees and grabbed at the grass for support. Steadying herself she managed to wonder briefly at the appearance of two supple, black boots just in front of her nose. Then her gaze trailed up their calves and higher. "I'm going to kill you," she murmured.

The Goblin King smirked. "Really, Sarah. No need to kneel." He held out a gloved hand to help her to her feet.

She ignored it and scrambled up on her own. "What the hell?"

He folded his arms behind his back and studied her, and she studied him in return. Bathed in the silvery moonlight of the Underground night, he was formidable, dressed in black from top to toe but for a sash in lilac purple around his waist; it conveniently matched the shade of the majority of the lilac trees in the garden into which he apparently had seen fit to pull her.

"So good of you to accept my invitation," he murmured at length.

"You call that an invitation?" She brushed grass from her knees and elbows.

He tilted his head again. "Ah. Goblins tend to be very – literal."

"Next time, send me a note."

"Yes, yes. I apologise for my subjects' enthusiastic nature." He gave her a second look-over. "Are you cold?"

"It's the middle of the freaking night here and I'm hardly dressed for the occasion," she groused.

"Sit." He gestured at the small bench at the centre at the garden and a warm-looking woollen, black blanket appeared on it, neatly folded.

Sarah shuffled over and sat down, wrapping the blanket around herself. It was very soft and very warm and strangely light. She pulled her feet up under herself and glowered. "Spill."

"Ah, yes. The Williams temper. I apologise once again. I meant to extend an invitation, not to instigate an abduction. And to forestall your next question, yes, I will send you back whenever you wish."

She scowled, in part to bite back a grin because, honestly, she could see the humour of the situation. What a picture she must have made, flopping in almost literally on his feet in a cloud of glitter. "I forgive you. This time."

He offered a small, sardonic bow. "Much obliged."

"Okay, I'm here. Why am I here?"

The King crossed his arms across his chest and stood in silhouette against the pale moonlight and the star-studded velvet black sky. He looked formidable. "You are here because I need you."

"Come again?"

He offered a small smile. "I did not intend to tell you this early in our – renewed relationship but that is the truth of the matter. Come, come, Sarah, surely you have wondered what this entire realm is, and what exactly keeps you and your brother connected to it. You have wondered what I am. You want to know the rules."

Sarah's eyes narrowed. "I don't think I'm going to like this. You said you had nothing to do with my dreams."

"I said that they were not of my making." He raised one hand, no doubt to ward off an impending explosion. "I have been an unwilling, if occasionally amused spectator, though."

"Unwilling? Because if you've been spying on my dreams somehow – "

"I have no power over you, remember? You dreamt of me, and I in turn watched what you dreamt. I had no influence over the proceedings, nor am I going to hold them against you. Except, possibly, the pimp bit. I found that rather insulting." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "If you need to scream and stomp your feet, kindly get it done with."

She held back an acerbic reply. The man had an innate ability to aggravate her, and she certainly felt like giving him a few pieces of her mind, but while throwing a tantrum might be emotionally gratifying it would not provide any answers. This situation had taken a decidedly uncomfortable twist and she needed information. "I'm good."

The King turned to study her face and then nodded. He walked over and sat down next to her on the bench, not close enough to crowd her, yet not as distant as before, stretching his long legs. "Very well. Do you realise why I let you retain the ability to see my goblins? Why I allowed them to go on visiting your home as they pleased? Let you call upon your friends when you wished to?"

"Not a clue. I used to think that you wanted me to remember the Underground because you were going to come back some day, but then time passed. I spent a lot of time reading about how to ward off faeries and spirits. I used to make sure I always had iron nearby."

"Tch. I am not a sidhe to be chased off by salt or counting my host. Every moment you spent with creatures from my world you fed your dreams into the Underground, allowing this realm to go on existing in its current form. It was not much, a few stolen moments brought back by your friends, but it was enough. When Toby called upon me, I was able to channel his dreams here, sustaining the kingdom above the levels of starvation. But I am losing him now, and that, Sarah, is why I need you. I need your dreams to sustain my world."

She pulled the blanket up around her ears for comfort. "Is that why that orchard and the watermill just kind of – popped into existence when I got here the second time?"

"Yes. It manifested in response to the infusion of energy that your actual, physical presence provided. You gave my realm its current form; it is connected to you. At the time being, you are our portal to the human world." He tilted his head to look at the dark night sky overhead. "It is a lovely dream."

"I – you're going to have to explain that. I don't think I understand."

She half expected a snappy response but the King's expression was surprisingly patient as he replied. "Everyone dreams, Sarah. Some dreams are beautiful. Some are nightmares of such cruelty that in the end, they consume their dreamers or send them screaming into catatonia and madness. Most dreams, however – are plain. Mundane. Wistful little bubbles of thought. Erotic fantasies. Idle what-if speculations and little scenes of wish fulfilment or pleasure. I give this world shape based on dreams. In recompense for what I take I make the dream real. Your adolescent fantasies were strong and even when you broke free of my spell you kept your dream alive. When you turned away to pursue your life in the human world your brother called upon me in your place. But I am losing him now in the same way that I eventually lost you; he is growing up and he wants to make his dreams come true in his own world." He paused, and then added, "This fairytale realm of allusions and humorous creatures amuses me. I have certainly spun far less pleasant realms, and the creatures that inhabit this world plead with me to keep things as they are for a while longer."

Sarah mulled on his words for a while before asking, "What would I have to do?"

"Nothing much that you are not doing already. Simply spend time here."

"With you?"

"In the Underground. My company is optional."

Sarah fiddled with a corner of the blanket. "I don't know. Somehow this is just not in character for you, Goblin King. You're being far too calm and reasonable. There's something you're not telling me."

"I have told you far more than I intended. These ballroom dreams of yours have been somewhat inconvenient."

"Why?"

"If you can explore your feelings about me and the Underground in the safety of your own mind, what need do you have to come here to do so? If I cannot lure you here I must ask." The King made a small, impatient gesture as if shrugging off an inconvenience.

"You really are a manipulative bastard."

"I am what I am. I told you once, I can be generous. Spend time here off and on, and the Underground keeps its current form. Decline my offer, and it will fade. The choice is entirely yours." He stood, cloak sweeping around his ankles.

"What happens to my friends if I refuse?"

"Nothing happens to them. Nothing. At all. When I find another dream to intrigue me, they will inhabit that, and you will be a lingering memory of a fading dream long gone."

Sarah rose as well and wriggled out of the blanket, folding it before she put it back down on the bench. "I'd like to go home now, please. I need to think about this."

"Don't make me wait too long," he replied crisply before the world fell into a crystalline, glittering haze around her.

* * * *


	13. You Fantasy Geeks Are All Nuts

A/N: See, I love you all so dearly that you get the usual Monday update in addition to the early update I did Saturday. Do we love me? Do we? :)

---

The instant that Sarah found herself back in her living room, traces of glitter sparkling and fading around her, she headed for the kitchen, took out a new mug to replace the one she had dropped in transport – gods only know where it had ended up, probably in the Labyrinth's vast junk yard – and filled it with coffee. She gulped down the entire mug and filled it again, this time adding a generous amount of sugar before sitting down at her desk. All the time Anastasia sat on the sofa, watching her intently.

After a while, and half a mug of caffeinated sugar, Sarah grit out, "Next time you get told to fetch me, -ask- me first."

"Okay." The goblin girl seemed unbothered.

"Promise, Anastasia. You'll never ever transport me again without my specific consent."

She tilted her head. "Are you mad at me, Sarah?"

"No. I'm mad at your king."

"Why?"

She downed another mouthful of syrup. "Because he's got a rotten, superior, condescending, all-knowing, -arrogant- attitude, that's why. I want to kick his glittery ass. It's not fair, but that's the way it is."

Anastasia nodded solemnly. That was practically goblin gospel.

Sarah sighed and turned to her laptop. "I shouldn't have uninstalled Medal of Honour," she muttered. "I could totally do with some mindless violence right now." She rummaged through her games folder looking for something of suitable levels of gore when she noticed the blinking MSN icon. She clicked on it, entertaining a brief hope that whoever was pestering now was someone she could yell at. In all caps and with poor spelling.

The message simply read, "Hi" – without punctuation. Did she know anyone named Leggylas?

Oh, hang on. Blue elf chick. Sarah added the contact and typed back, "Hello?"

The message window informed her that the person on the other end was typing and Sarah finished off her sugary coffee and checked her email. When the window pinged at her again, she read, "Hi, my name is Sharon, I got your address from your studio, I hope that's okay, I'm Toby's friend, thank you so much for the picture, it's awesome, can we talk?"

Oh, they'd have slapped a label with the studio name and address on the back of the print, of course. Sarah did not particularly feel like making conversation but on the other hand, this was the girl her brother was all worked up about. She responded with her phone number. She was not going to have a message conversation with someone who had apparently managed to go through school without being introduced to the notion of punctuation.

The phone rang and she picked up. "Sarah Williams."

"Hi, I'm Sharon," a shy voice said on the other end. "Are you Toby's girlfriend?"

"I'm his sister."

"Oh thank god," the girl on the other end said with obvious relief. "I've been so worried. He wants to meet me and I was so scared that maybe I was breaking something up when I saw the signature on the painting."

Sarah had to smile. "No worries. Toby talks about you as his girlfriend so you're probably pretty safe." Behind her on the sofa, Anastasia was all unsubtle ears.

"Really?" She could almost hear the blush. "Anyway, I really don't want to take your time but it's just that I don't know what to say, everyone's always saying you shouldn't meet someone just like that but I really want to."

"Toby's pretty harmless unless you're a pizza."

"My friend says she'll go with me but I had to know whether, you know, Toby and you – anyway, would you come too? Then it'd be like, four people and it wouldn't be so weird, we'd just be people hanging out or something."

"Doooooo it," Anastasia mouthed silently.

"Tell you what," Sarah told the nervous girl. "I'll call Toby and see what he thinks. Can he call you back?"

"No! I mean, no, that's not so good, I'm not allowed to give out my number."

Sarah peeked at the display of her phone. Sure enough, anonymous caller ID. "Okay, fine, he can catch you on-line, how's that?"

"Yeah, okay. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you!"

"No worries," Sarah said again and hung up. Then she dialled Toby's cellphone.

"Myallo?"

"Heya Tobes. It's me."

"Oh hey, sis, what's up?" She could hear the sound of people talking in the background; he was probably on a bus somewhere.

"Oh, nothing much, it's just that your girlfriend just called and invited me out on a date," she teased.

For a moment there was silence on the other end. Then, loudly, "What?"

Anastasia and Sarah both had to laugh. "Sharon called me. She got my email from the studio and hit me up on Messenger. I gave her my number and she called me. She wants to meet me. Oh, and I'm supposed to drag you along, of course."

"Oh god, really? For real, Sarah? My god, what did you do to her? I've been trying for -weeks- to get her to agree to meeting somewhere."

"Yeah, well, maybe I don't sound so desperate," she teased again. "Her friend's going to be there too. She's going to talk to you on-line tonight so you can set up some time and place. Make it afternoon or I'll have to hurt you, you know I paint in the morning."

"You are the best big sister ever!" Toby's enthusiasm shone through, she could picture him practically dancing around with the cellphone in glee. "I'm gonna hurry home!"

"Actually I was going to ask if you could come over here," she interrupted his attempt to end the conversation. "You can log in from my laptop so you don't miss her, but I really need to talk."

* * * *

Like all boys and young men still having some growing to do, Toby possessed an innate ability to turn up at the exact instant that Sarah took the warm buns out of the oven. She cheated and used a ready mix, just add water and bake, mentally defending herself to the imagined beratings of Karen who would never subject her household to such easy solutions. Anastasia was slicing cheese – like all goblins, shiny things such as cheese slicers fascinated her – when Toby locked himself in and followed his nose.

"Yo, Tobes," Sarah greeted him. "Pour the tea, will you?"

"Is that food?"

"Well, it's definitely not camel dung."

"Yay! Food!" He took out three mugs, one for each, and sat down. Anastasia sat down on the table itself rather than on a chair; given her diminutive size this saved her stacking books to sit on.

Sarah distributed hot buns and began to butter hers. "So."

"Oh yeah." Toby opened the lid on her laptop and signed into the Messenger program just in case Sharon was early. "You sounded like something serious."

Anastasia carefully placed two slices of cheese on her bun with her pinkies sticking out lady-like and then bit into the result with the dignity and grace of a feral boar.

"Yeah, you can say that. I just had an audience with His Highness and I am seriously pissed off." Sarah poured sugar into her tea. "I managed not to scream at him. Barely. Is he always so infuriating?"

Toby shrugged. "Sometimes. You get used to it. What did he do?"

"I'm sorry," Anastasia inserted, face full of crumbs.

"It's okay, Anna. It's not you I'm grouchy with. You were just doing as you were told." Sarah smiled at the goblin girl and then looked back at her brother. "He wants me to spend time in the Underground. He gave me a speech about dreams and how they're the lifeblood of his kingdom. I kind of see how that works."

"But?" Toby prompted and sliced another bun.

"But his attitude drives me insane! He might as well have threatened to toss the gang into an oubliette if I don't do what he says to do!"

"Eep," Anastasia said, munching.

Toby snickered. "Yeah, well. That's His Tightness for you. Let me guess. He was being all calm and reasonable except that you could tell that if you went and did something else, you'd really, really not like the outcome?"

"Yeah, that sounds about right."

"He's pissed off too, then. That's how he gets when he's not in charge of everything. I'd ignore it, he'll get over it."

"Meh."

Toby just shrugged again. "He hates not being on top of everything. It doesn't suit his self image to have to say 'please'. I didn't think he'd actually try to get back in touch with you, sis, but it makes sense enough. I've been busy with school and Sharon and stuff, I guess the place's just running low on dream juice. You don't have to care what he wants, it's not like he can force you to do anything. Hell, if there's anyone he can't bully around it's you."

Sarah pushed her bun around. "He told me that I was the connection to the human world. He said that without me, the Underground might fade away."

Anastasia nodded solemnly and swiped another slice of cheese. "That's how it is."

"Yeah, but what happens?"

The goblin girl squirmed. "Dunno. We just go somewhere else. Don't remember much. Please don't go away, Sarah. I like being a goblin."

Sarah all but growled. "See? If that's not blackmail I don't know what is. I swear, Anastasia, I'm doing what that self-absorbed piece of sparkly self-indulgence wants but I'm doing it for you guys and not for him."

* * * * *

Amanda Jackson by far preferred to take her lunches in the coffee shop across the street with her friend Sarah. Her friend being the breezy artist that she was, however, did not come into the studio every day and every so often Amanda only had herself and a good book for company. She always made certain to pack what she considered to be a good book – something paperback, well written, and speculative, to serve as a counterweight to all the sappy romantic crap she had to read through at work. Every now and then one of the manuscripts were really good but for every piece worth editing and publishing there was a hundred that deserved only fire, lots of fire.

Today was one of those days and Amanda was eating pasta salad with chicken with her nose in her book when she noticed that someone else had taken the seat across from her. She did not mind as such, the coffee shop was small and sometimes crowded. What captured her attention was the burnt umber leather jacket with the high collar; she had seen that before. She closed her book and looked up at the blonde guy Sarah had issues with when she wasn't dreaming about being his Cinderella.

"Hello, Amanda," he purred. No, really, he reminded her of a lazy cat stretching out nonchalantly in a comfortably warm spot.

"Heya hotpants," she greeted him back. "Sarah isn't gonna show up today so if you're looking to crash into her accidentally a second time you're gonna have to rework your schedule."

"Oh, it's you I want to see," he smiled, leaning back on his chair.

"Saggitarius, thirty-eight, no kids, no steady boyfriend, and I don't do laundry."

He chuckled. "You are very direct. I see what Sarah likes about you."

Amanda flashed him a smirk and hunted through her pasta for a bit of chicken. "So what's the occasion?"

"I am curious. I gather that Sarah has a marriage behind her."

"Mm-hm. And you haven't thought about asking her about that?"

He tilted his head slightly. "She is – not very receptive at the time being."

"You managed to piss her off already? Gotta hand it to you, hotpants, you move quick."

His thin lips twitched into a small smile. "I've a certain talent for ticking that particular lady off, it appears."

Amanda shrugged. "Sucks to be you. If Sarah thinks you need to know about her ex she'll tell you. I sure as hell don't go behind my friends' backs like that, and if you thought I would then you're as big an asshole as she seems to think you are."

"Touché. What I wanted to ask, however, was whether she is seeing anyone at the time being. I wouldn't want to – get in the way."

She rubbed at her eyes, careful not to ruin her mascara. "Fair enough. I don't think there's anyone special at the moment although there's a couple of guys at the studio who might be open to the general idea."

He steepled his fingers. "Sarah does not strike me as the kind of woman who appreciates – flings."

"Sarah doesn't do one night stands if that's what you're asking. If you've got commitment issues or a wife back home you might as well pack up and leave town on the first horse out. What's your name, anyway? I can't go on calling you hotpants."

"Gean-Canach," he replied.

"Gancannor? What kind of name is that? Somebody from Tolkien? Oh, I get it. It's Welsh, right? Geez, you fantasy geeks are all nuts."

'Gancannor' raised an eyebrow. "Irish, as a matter of fact."

"You can call yourself Johnny Appleseed if you like, mister. Anyway, I have to get out of here, lunch break's over. I'm sure I'll see you around."

"I suspect you might," he grinned and remained seated as she walked out.

* * * *


	14. The Peacock is a Very Regal Bird

After Toby had finally had his MSN conversation with his maybe-girlfriend, set up a date and a place, and wandered off again, Sarah focused on work for several days. She managed to lay out the number of illustrations needed for the elf book and sketch them, and got most of the backgrounds gone, using merry greens and bright blues to give a cheerful air that would appeal to the young target audience. She wanted to capture some of the mischief of her goblin models but that was for later when she would start painting in the characters, adding a glint to an eye here and a smirk there. The best part about painting and sleeping in turns without much distraction was that it allowed her time to think and probe her own feelings.

Surprisingly, she did not dream of the crystal ballroom that night. Instead, she had mundane, ordinary dreams that allowed her to wake rested and without a blush, be it of anger or – otherwise. She found time to actually cook and eat a proper dinner and watch the news on TV, doodling as she did so. Her pen wandered freely over the sketch pad, stroking this way and that, and a bird began to take shape, a beautiful peacock with his tail spread out; she could already see the colours she would use in her mind, sparkling shades of green and metallic blue, with dabs of rusty red to offset the brilliance. And then it was no longer a bird but a cloak and yet she found herself unable to resist the temptation to continue.

It was eight in the morning when the doorbell rang and Sarah realised that she had pulled an all-nighter alone with her thoughts and the peacock. The peacock drawing, she corrected herself as she got up to answer. Fortunately not the real thing.

"I come bearing presents," Amanda announced as she slipped into the apartment, holding out a paper bag like she expected it to save her life. "You cannot kill the bearer of bagels."

Sarah giggled and closed the door behind her friend. "Don't you have work today?"

"Myeah, but I'm ahead of schedule and if I come in before noon Will's bound to find out and we all know how that ends. I have no particular need to be saddled with another pile of wannabe Jay Kay Rowlings so I figured I'd come harass you instead." She flopped herself down at the kitchen table looking at the coffee machine expectantly.

Sarah poured water into it and turned it on. "Well, if Will asks, you can tell him I'm on schedule. The paintings are going fine."

Amanda shrugged and peered at the laptop monitor. "Hoo boy. Wowzers. I'd so hit that."

Sarah blushed bright vermilion. "Er. Yeah. I was just doodling."

"Honey, that's not a doodle. That's a full-sized poster waiting to be printed. Or raped."

She had to admit that the doodle stopped being just a doodle at the point where she had scanned it and started inking and colouring for real on the laptop. In careful lines, almost art nouveau style, she had managed to capture the Goblin King's likeness when he was at his most seductive and villainous. Looking up through heavy lashes he was wearing a full-sized cloak made from carefully outlined peacock feathers, flowing lightly around his lithe frame, contrasting with the dark blue draperies and sandstone columns of a ballroom that had never existed. He made a slight bow towards the viewer as if inclining to ask for a dance. His eyes offered a challenge and a promise, not of happily ever after but quite possibly of a lot of interesting physical experiences in the meantime. "I'm not really sure what happened. I was just doodling and then it turned into a peacock, and that kind of turned into, well, that."

"Rawr."

"It suits him. He's vain as hell."

Amanda grinned broadly and reached for a mug. "Speak of the devil, by the way, you can guess who I ran into in the coffee shop the other day."

Sarah blinked. "Really?"

"Yeah. He wasn't dressed that outrageously, though –" she gestured at the peacock drawing. "Fortunately. If he had been I might have been arrested for assault and indecent exposure. Anyhow, he was sniffing you out, baby."

Sarah distributed coffee and flopped down on her chair, inhaling its scent and promises of wakefulness. "Oh."

"Okay, that was a bit less enthusiasm than I was expecting. He wanted to know about Rob. I told him that if he wanted to know anything about you he could go straight to the horse's mouth. What's his name, by the way? I asked him but he fed me some Celtic bullshit."

"Maybe I should hire you as my bodyguard to keep me safe from manipulative, handsome bastards. What bullshit?"

Amanda shrugged. "Gancannor or something along those lines. Hey, did you try that dream thing I suggested?"

"Yeah. It seems to have done the trick. I haven't had any more ballroom dreams since, at least."

"Is that good or bad?"

Sarah smiled. "It's good. It's so much more gratifying to shout at the jerk face to face."

* * * *

The afternoon sun shone down brilliantly on the park and the resident swan couple circled on the small lake, occasionally dipping in under the bridge only to emerge on the other side gracefully a moment later. The occasional jogger trotted along and a boy was playing frisbee with a yellow labrador dog. Everything breathed peace and sleepy small-town tranquillity. Sarah settled on her favourite bench and pulled her coat up around her ears; it was a beautiful day but the breeze was playful and chilly, and quite intent on undoing her ponytail.

And then there was a soft humming in her ear, a low and pleasant sound without words. She took her eyes off the lake and the swans and looked to her side where the Goblin King sprawled on the bench next to her, smiling, a few sparkles of glitter residue from his magical transportation fading. Wearing jeans and a body hugging black turtle-neck sweater under a bomber jacket he looked decidedly different from anything she might have expected of him; even the make-up was gone and he had made a half-hearted attempt to tame his hair in a ponytail at the base of the neck. The result was not displeasing, if still somewhat on the eccentric side.

Upon seeing Sarah's eyes widen the King gestured at his attire. "Well?"

"It's... different." Oh, he looked good enough to eat, but at the same time, it lacked a certain something magical, glittery, flamboyant, egocentric, and altogether Goblin King.

"Perhaps I should wear that cape you designed for me last night. I rather liked it. The peacock is a very regal bird, if not particularly bright."

She grimaced. "For someone who allegedly can't spy on my apartment you're remarkably well informed, Goblin King."

"Come, come, Sarah. You should know by now that I feel it when you think of me so hard for so long."

Sarah turned back to look at the lake lest a certain somebody spot the faint flush of her cheeks. She had focused for a long time on his body shape and build in her mind while painting the peacock costume. She had done so in order to get the proportions and costume right , obviously, but for some reason she felt like she had snuck in to watch him in the shower. "Why are you here?"

He studied his fingers through the ever present gloves. "Curiosity. You're still upset with me."

"I don't like feeling blackmailed or pressured into doing something. It's not fair. I know it's the way it is, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. We're going to be having a talk about this later."

The King raised his chin to look over Sarah's shoulder. "Now is not the proper time."

She glanced at the approaching figure of her brother and nodded. "Just don't think you're off the hook, Goblin King."

"Hello!" Toby was panting like he had run from his pick-up to the centre of the park; he probably had. He had attempted to tame his yellow mane without much success and wore a faded t-shirt that read "EPIC" with an arrow pointing up. "Have you waited long? Are they here yet?"

"Just a couple of minutes," Sarah replied. "Please tell me that shirt is some in-joke that Sharon will find amusing."

"Yeah, it's a Warcraft joke, don't you start too, mom went on for twenty minutes about it," he groaned. "Do I look okay? I didn't want to look like it was a date or something, just casual like."

"You look fine, Tobes. Calm down."

"That's easy for you to say. What time is it?"

"Relax. You don't want to look all desperate, do you?"

"I -am- desperate!" Toby ran his hand through his hair, effectively ruining any calming influence that his hairbrush might have had earlier on. He also shot a withering glare at the Goblin King whose silent smirk was a mile wide; it failed to have much effect.

* * * *

Nicole sighed as Sharon stopped walking for the umpteenth time to look over her shoulder and then pretend that she was checking her make-up in a shop window. She looked fine in her jeans and tank top, casually showing off youthful curves, and if Tobias disapproved of her appearance, he'd be an idiot. She was running a risk of gradually turning blue from the weather, but she had refused point blank to wear a hoodie or jacket and cramp her style. "Oh, stop it," the darker girl growled. "You're procrastinating so bad he'll be in an old folks' home when we get there."

"Whatever," Sharon muttered. "At least you're not freezing your ass off."

"That's because I'm not walking around with bare arms. You look fine. Let's -move-."

The girls rounded a corner and walked into the town park, depriving Sharon of any more windows to pretend to check herself out in, much to Nicole's relief, and headed for the centre near the bridge; a nice, open space where they would be able to see who was coming and going.

"Oh crap, the bench's taken," Sharon mumbled.

"Hey, maybe that blond guy is Tobias. He looks the right age," Nicole observed.

"I hope not, 'cause then he brought his dad."

"Tacky."

The girls stood for a moment, stealing looks at the others; the blond youth in particular was stealing looks back. He was kind of hot, Nicole figured. Tall and lanky, with shaggy yellow hair. "Hey, look, blondie's wearing a Warcraft tee. That's definitely him."

As if on cue the other three stood and walked towards them. A dark-haired woman smiled politely and offered, "Hello, would either of you girls be Sharon?"

"Yeah," Sharon mumbled.

"I'm Nicole, I'm just here for the ride," Nicole offered cheekily.

The lady's green eyes sparkled with amusement. "Well, I'm Sarah and this big lout here is Toby. He can talk but usually we have to bribe him with a biscuit."

On cue, the young man blushed. "Hi, er, nice to meet you."

"And this is – " Sarah faltered.

"Jay," Toby picked up quickly. "He's a family friend from out of town. We didn't want to leave him at home, god knows what he'd get up to."

Jay nodded at the girls from his perch on the bench. He had 'wants to be hip with the kids' stamped all over him, Nicole decided. Either that or he was the art director of some fancy advertising agency somewhere.

"So, like, I'd really like to say thank you for the painting," Sharon bubbled, not unlike someone who has been holding her breath the last minute. "It's really pretty, I wish I could draw like that."

"It was Toby's idea," Sarah smiled at her brother. "I'm glad you like it."

Toby ran a hand through his hair; it looked like a nervous habit. "I'm not usually this quiet, honest. I'm just – it's surreal, seeing you in the flesh. You're really here."

Sharon's cheeks turned pink. "I know, right?"

"How about a stroll around the lake?" Sarah suggested.

"I'm up for that," Nicole agreed quickly.

"Shut your mouth before you start to catch flies, Toby."

"Okay, Jay."

The three of them took the lead, letting Toby and Sharon fall a few steps behind as they strolled down the gravel path that wound its way between the trees along the banks of the small river that fed the lake. When Nicole looked back over her shoulder a minute later, neither of them had moved yet. She sighed audibly and looked at the two older people. "So you two are together?"

"Only when she doesn't see me first," Jay smirked. His crisp British accent was surprisingly pleasant on the ear.

"Oh, please," Sarah quipped. "Give me some credit for taste. Jay's a writer, and everyone knows they make no money."

Nicole gave the guy a second look-over. Yeah, writer would work too. Eccentric types, writers. "Have you written anything I would have read?"

He shook his head. "Sarah's giving me too much credit. I mostly rehash old fairytales into a modern setting."

"Fairytales? Like Hansel and Gretel?"

"Horrible story. Abandoned children, starvation and poverty, attempted infanticide, cannibalism, and let's not forget about the poor witch, burned to death with her own cooking utensils. Stephen King could have a field day with it."

Nicole laughed and then glanced back. Sharon and Tobias – Toby, she corrected herself – had begun to walk, ever so slowly, neither of them making any effort to catch up. Sharon was explaining something with great enthusiasm, waving her hands in the air. Toby was laughing and nodding. "Oh, I bet they got started on mounts," she commented. "Once you get Sharon going on that game there's no shutting her up."

"You don't play?" Sarah inquired.

"Off and on but Sharon's the gamer geek in this outfit. She can blow an entire night at the computer and then act like she's surprised that it's the next day."

"A modern fairytale," Jay observed. "Boy meets computer, girl meets computer, everyone lives happily ever after or until there is a power failure."

"Be nice," Sarah poked him in the ribs.

"Yes, yes. Anything you want, as always."

Sarah pointedly ignored the comment and turned to Nicole. "So, what do you and Sharon do for a living, anyhow? Are you still in school?"

* * * *


	15. Hold the Cyanide

A small sigh of relief escaped Sarah's lips when the three younger people decided to drive off to have coffee downtown, without the chaperones – apparently Sharon had overcome the worst of her initial shyness. The girls seemed nice enough but watching her usually confident brother gape and gawk like an adolescent with a crush was simply painful. She waved them off and began to stroll in the direction of her own car, letting "Jay" decide whether to keep up or stay behind.

He matched her pace nonchalantly. "Well, that was interesting."

"Awkward," Sarah agreed. "I didn't realise you read Stephen King."

"I have a lot of spare time."

She looked straight at him. "If you think fishing for gossip on me from my friends is going to win you any points then yes, yes, you do."

The King shrugged. "I'm somewhat short on other options to learn more about what you've been doing the last twenty years. Toby has always refused to talk about you."

"Good boy. I'll have to bake him a pie. Have you even considered the notion that I might not -want- you to know everything about me? That my personal life is none of your damn business in the first place?"

"No, not really."

"Well, maybe you should start believing it. You've got me in a situation where I have to do what you want in order to keep my friends safe – hell, to keep them alive. That does -not- mean you get to interfere with my life however you see fit. You do not get to interrogate my friends, you do not get any say whatsoever in who I decide to go out with or get involved with. If I decide to take some random stranger home and have mad monkey sex with him on the kitchen table all weekend it's. None. Of. Your. Business. Are we clear on that, Goblin King?"

"Crystal," he replied breezily. "I thought you preferred buffet tables anyhow."

First came the flushing with embarrassment. Then her toes curling at the idea of him knowing what she had dreamt about him under that table. And then, the knee-jerk anger at the invasion of her subconscious' privacy. "I'm sure you enjoyed that."

He gave her a small, crooked smirk. "Not as much as I would have if I had been an active participant instead of just watching. The bit with the strawberries was quite intriguing."

She began to walk again. "I hate you."

"I've never thought of that particular use for avocado dip before, either."

"I -really- hate you."

"Methinks the lady doth protest too much."

She face palmed. "You can -not- be a brat and quote Shakespeare at the same time. Don't you realise how embarrassing this is for me?"

He smirked again. "Come, come, Sarah. You think your fantasies are embarrassing? They are quite vanilla, I assure you."

"Oh, thank you, that makes me feel a lot better." She fumbled in her pocket for her car keys.

"Given some of the roles I have played over time it ought to. Well?"

"Well?"

"Well, are you going to offer me a ride?"

"What happened to glitter poofing?"

"Translocation does not let me continue watching you squirm and proclaim your hatred of me so amusingly."

"I hate you. Get in, then."

He did, and she backed the car out of the parking lot. "Where to?"

The Goblin King leaned back in the seat and shook his hair free of the ponytail; it burst free almost gleefully, returning to its normal, wild halo-like state of anarchy. "Wherever you please."

"Fine. In that case we're going to my place. I need coffee and I don't want to have an audience while I murder you and bury the remains under a nearby construction site." She trod on the speeder, causing the car to jerk forward.

* * * *

Sarah unlocked her door and ushered her guest inside before he might catch the eyes of curious neighbours. She flung her coat on the rack and turned to take his, only to find that he already had wandered into the combined living room and kitchen, and was looking around with curiosity and interest. Touching nothing, the Goblin King simply wandered around at seemingly random, looking at the pictures on the walls and shelves, studying the view out of her windows, and – well, if he had been a dog she would have said he was sniffing out the place, memorising everything.

"What are you doing?" she asked at length.

He ran one gloved finger along the edge of a counter top, as if looking for dust, then glanced at the magazines on the coffee table. "Looking."

"Yes, well, I can see that."

"This is the one place on the planet I cannot see when I want to. I'm curious."

Sarah paused in mid-stride towards the coffee machine. "Er, yes. About that. This is a one-time only invitation, you understand. And you have to leave when I tell you to."

He chuckled. "Yes, yes. I don't intend to poke around in your underwear drawer or read your diary either, Sarah."

"Good. I'd warn you against the carpet shark under the sofa but you're already acquainted." She turned the machine on and stood next to it, feeling a little awkward about the way he investigated the room so very thoroughly, committing every little detail to memory. It felt oddly like her entire life and the bric-a-brac of it that had washed ashore in her apartment was being silently evaluated.

The Goblin King gravitated towards the picture collection, touching one frame very lightly. "Your husband?"

"Yeah. Well, ex-husband."

"You'll have to tell me about him sometime."

"Why? He's history."

The King flashed her a crooked smile. "He must have been quite somebody, to outshine -me-."

Sarah put the ceramic mugs down on the kitchen table a little harder than she intended to. "Well, somebody's certainly got a high opinion of himself."

He folded his arms across his chest and tilted his head, assuming an expression so inviting a slap or angry yelling at that she could not resist snickering; twenty years ago she would have gone ballistic at that challenging look. When he fluttered his eyelashes she had to laugh. "Okay, okay. Do you take anything in your coffee?"

"A drop of milk, hold the cyanide."

She handed him one mug and curled up on the sofa with the other. "So. About me and the Underground. What exactly do I need to do? Just spend time there? How do I get back and forth? How much time do I have to spend?"

"You're free to come and go as you please, except for my personal quarters. You can have your spirit guides take you, or you can go through the goblins' portal in your wardrobe. Some of the goblins are able to travel directly, as well – Anastasia among them. They will happily take you back and forth on request. As for how much time, I'm positive we can work out an agreement that meets my realm's requirements without disrupting your other life too much."

"My spirit guide? I thought Pish and Tosh were from the Underground."

The King shook his head. "No, that particular entity – or those particular entities – serve as your personal guides between worlds and planes of existence."

Sarah mulled on that for a minute. "So, if I was to venture that everyone has a spirit guide, how come mine are actually visible and sometimes physically in the room with me? That's not exactly – normal."

"Neither is seeing goblins."

"Good point. So, I can come and go as I please and I don't have to ask you for permission. I can do pretty much what I want, and you're not making any demands of me. That sounds too good to be true. What's the catch?"

"Always so contrite." He tapped one finger against his lower lip in mock contemplation. "Ah, yes. I shall have to ask a favour for my generosity. You shall – " he paused dramatically, "– call me by name."

"Huh?" Not the most intelligent reply, but then, his request was not exactly what she had been expecting – or worrying about – either.

"Come, come, Sarah. You do know my name. I have heard you use it, in your dreams."

She winced. "And that's why I'm in the habit of calling you something else. Okay. I'll try to remember – Jareth."

He put the empty coffee mug down on the table and stood. "And on that note I will take my leave. After all, answering all your questions -here- would be rather counter-productive to my goal, would it not?"

Sarah got up as well and wondered whether she should move as if to walk him to the door. "I suppose so. I know where you live."

He smirked. "That sounds delightfully like a threat. Goodbye, Sarah."

"Goodbye – oh man," she said to the fading after-image in front of her. "Would it be too much to ask for to at least use the door?"

* * * *

Toby, being of the male persuasion and accustomed to his daily dose of fantasy being quite literal, in the flesh, and usually in full swing dismantling something, was not one to go for romantic movies or dreamy tunes. He was usually a quite down to earth kind of guy, careful not to get caught talking to people and things that only he could see, and possessed of a practical mindset. Except today. Today, he felt, it would be entirely appropriate if he had pink fairy wings and flitted instead of walking. There ought to be cheerful music, something with violins, singing birds Disney style, and of course, buckets of glitter. In other words, he was high as a kite on happiness and having survived meeting Sharon in the flesh, and he knew it.

He also knew that there is always a bigger fish, or in this case, predatory bird. Its name was Karen and it was hovering in the living room, waiting to pounce on him and squeeze every detail of the date from his quivering limbs. He grinned as he turned the door knob; sure enough, he could hear the heels of his mother's pumps emerging from the kitchen. "I'm home," he announced cheerfully.

"Hello, dear," his mother called out, trying to restrain her expression, which was taking on certain vulture-like qualities.

"So, what's for dinner?"

"What was she like?"

"I'm hungry," he whined.

"Toby. Tell me everything right this instant or I swear to God I will burst a vein!"

Toby laughed and caved, ambling kitchen wards and talking over his shoulder. "She's gorgeous, mom. Her hair's kind of medium brown and she has grey eyes and she's kind of small."

"Mm-hm. What did she dress like?"

"Oh, come on. I'm a guy. I don't notice those things. She wasn't wearing sack cloth." He began to prepare a peanut butter sandwich, absent-mindedly grabbing a new butter knife when the first disappeared, no doubt to be licked clean by some enterprising goblin's raspy tongue. "She's not movie star pretty but she's cute in a kind of way that makes you want to pick her up and cuddle her. Like a little bunny rabbit. Terribly shy, too."

Karen circled him like a shark at a free-for-all swimming pool buffet. "What does she do for a living? Is she in school?"

"Yeah, she studies computer science."

"That's a strange degree for a girl to be studying for."

"Welcome to the 21st century, mom."

"Ha. Ha. Put the lid back on the jar when you're done, Toby. And you'll be bringing that girl over for dinner one of these days, you hear me?"

"Loud and clear like you were standing right next to me, mom." He waved his homework as an excuse and made a quick escape upstairs to nibble on his sandwich and resume basking in the fluffy pink clouds of young love.

* * * *

Goblins and chickens scattered wide as their king appeared in the middle of his throne room in a swirl and a puff of sparkles, bomber jacket turned ankle-length black cape flowing around him and crackling as he turned swiftly, took in the room, and threw himself on his throne, all in one fluid movement of graceful indifference to who- or whatever didn't get out of his way fast enough to avoid being stepped on. An egg rolled across the floor, no doubt dropped by either a surprised goblin or an even more surprised hen, coming to a halt in front of the stairs.

Familiar with their sovereign's mercurial moods, twenty-six goblins tilted their heads and listened for orders. The twenty-seventh grabbed the egg and swallowed it whole, shell and all. "Bring me Sir Didymus!" the Goblin King exclaimed.

A couple of goblins exchanged glances and then ran off in various directions. Jareth looked pointedly at the remaining flock. "Well?"

"Oh!"

"He means us too!"

"I dropped my egg!"

"Ribbit!"

When only one remained, still sucking egg yolk from its teeth, he picked it up by the scruff of its neck and tossed it out the window, grinning to himself at the imminent thud and muffled curse from below. Then he sank back on the throne, draping one leg over one armrest and one arm behind his neck, looking up at the domed sandstone ceiling through half-closed eyelids. He did not stop reminiscing about the fire in enraged green eyes until he was called back to reality by the noise of clawed paws padding into the throne room and coming to a halt.

"Stay, Ambrosius!" A bit of shuffling as the fox goblin exited his saddle and ordered his faithful steed to wait – which it was happy to do, on the nearest vacant blanket still warm from a goblin's body heat.

"Sire, I await thy bidding." Sir Didymus bowed low before the throne, beautiful tail swishing rakishly.

Jareth righted himself in his seat and studied the little creature. "I have a task for you, my good knight," he said at length. "One to which you are particularly well suited."

The fox' whiskers twitched. "A quest for my liege! I shall fight for thee on the land, I shall fight in the water, I shall fight on the beaches, I shall fight in the fields, I shall fight in..." he scratched his chin. "Well, however the rest of that may go, my sense of smell is keen and I shall serve thee as thou dost bid!"

The King tilted his head. "Didymus, are you misquoting -Churchill- at me?"

Fortunately for the miniscule knight, his blush was not able to penetrate his russet fur.

Jareth's lips twitched into a small smile. "Nevermind. A damsel requires your special talents."

Sir Didymus straightened up to his full, impressive height and stared solemnly at his king's belt. "I shall rescue her! I shall protect her! I shall lay down my life for her!"

"Yes, yes, I'm sure." Jareth flicked his wrist, calling a crystal orb into existence. Holding it out for the little knight to see he murmured, "This is Toby's special lady."

Didymus studied the mousy face in the crystal intently. "A jewel amidst rocks, a diamond in the rough, a – little pale?"

The King put the crystal in the fox goblin's paw and closed the other paw over it. "Keep it safe so you can recognise her anywhere, Didymus."

White whiskers twitched again. "Is she in danger, Sire? I'll – "

He was waved off before he could get started on another speech praising his own virtues and intentions. "Yes. I know you will, Didymus. That's why I'm sending you. Watch her, report to me if anything unusual happens, and, well, do whatever it is you do. Oh, and do remember your steed on the way out."

* * * *


	16. Ripley Would Have Him For Breakfast

On Friday Sarah went in to work to show Will her progress on the elf project and check up on company affairs, business emails, and of course, water cooler gossip. When she spread out her prints, grainy as they were courtesy of her old jet-ink printer, Will was ecstatic. He shifted through them, picking one up to admire a detail, putting it down again, grabbing another, turning back, and generally behaving like a kid in a candy store or an editor who knows that the next big customer paycheck is safely in the bag.

"Sarah, this is really well done. The way you've used that watermill in the background and the little cottages give a really rustic feel. It's almost like you're seeing some remote village in England or Ireland but without any direct give-aways to the location. I have to say, you've really outshone yourself this time."

Sarah beamed. "I'm not done with the finer details, as you can tell, but I've had a lot of fun with the backgrounds and sceneries."

"It shows! This is a happy children's story with a lot of little quirks and details, and that spirit is what the customer wants. I love how you just leave little surprises everywhere, like that chicken in the window and the elf that's chasing a rat over here, and the grins on the faces of the elves on this one makes me want to feel my pocket for things suddenly gone missing."

"That'd probably be a good idea."

"Is that a butterfly net this one is using to chase the cat with?"

"Yep. Didn't you know that butterfly nets are perfect for catching cats?"

"The net is smaller than the cat, though."

"That's what makes it fun." She nodded firmly. Twenty years with goblins taught you a thing or two about their upside-down, sideways tilted brand of logic.

Will grinned. "I'll have to try that some day. Sarah, this is an editor's wet dream. You're on time, and your work is great. What can I do to make you as happy as you've made me?"

"I take bribes in the form of chocolate and caffeine."

"Well, then I'm simply going to have to ask you out, aren't I? I do happen to know a small Italian place that has the best espresso on the face of the planet."

"Well, I'm not doing anything this afternoon – "

"No, no. If I'm asking you out, Sarah Williams, I'm doing it properly. Will you consent to dine with me at Luigi's on Wednesday? I'll pick you up at your place and take you home after, too."

She blinked at him owlishly. "Are you asking me on a date?"

"No shop talk," he tempted. "Just good pasta and world class espresso."

Will was a handsome man. He was a good man to work for, too. He had a keen sense of humour and having worked as an artist himself he shared a lot of her interests and understood a fair number of her work related problems. He also had his feet solidly on the ground and an easy-going nature. He had children already and a messy divorce behind him, one that had led to several rants on his behalf about how he had no desire to move into a close relationship again anytime soon. She'd be an idiot not to give this a chance; men who weren't clingy and who were willing to take things slow and easy and as they came didn't exactly grow on trees.

She wondered what the Goblin King would have to say about that.

Sarah took out her time planner and made a little show of writing "Dinner, No Job Talk" on the entry for Wednesday. "You're on." Then she threw her editor a smile and scooped up her art prints.

* * * *

Despite her solemn vow that she was not going to do exactly that, Sarah could not resist the urge to scan the coffee shop for wild blond hairdos as she and Amanda slunk inside; there was not a glittery trace of goblin royalty present, however, and she breathed a small sigh of relief as the two women found seats. Amanda ordered pasta salad for them both before turning to Sarah with a predatory grin. "So how did Toby's big date go?"

Sarah laughed. "They came, they saw, they talked gibberish for an hour while the rest of us sort of politely waited around. It was clearly love at first sight."

"The rest of you?"

"Yeah, Sharon's friend and – mister handsome bastard."

Amanda arched an eyebrow. "I swear, that guy is stalking you."

"I think that's a given by now," Sarah agreed.

"So, does Hotpants have a real name or am I really supposed to refer to him as John Connor? I will make bad Schwarzenegger jokes at him until he cringes and begs for mercy. I'll be bach and you can be Mozart, that sort of thing."

Sarah groaned. "Come with me if you want to live?"

"Hasta la vista, baby. Awesome movie, though. In spite of Schwarzenegger."

"Heh, yeah. It's not John Connor or Hancock, though, it's Gean-canach and it's a pretty horrid joke."

"Care to clue me in?"

She took her plate from the waitress. "It's an Irish legend. The Gean-canach is a faerie who preys on young women who walk out alone. He seduces them with sweet words and kills them or takes them away to the faerie lands. He represents the dangers of idleness and love, I suppose."

"If this guy is trying to make an impression on you, he must be pretty dense to compare himself to some kind of leprechaun Bluebeard."

Sarah shrugged. "Who knows what goes on in his head. His name is Jareth. Toby calls him Jay sometimes, though."

Amanda dug around her pasta for the bits of tuna. "So, has he asked you out yet?"

"Nope. Will did this morning, though."

"Really? No kidding? I didn't think he'd ever find the balls to do that."

Sarah sipped her mineral water. "Nothing fancy. Just dinner and coffee at some Italian place."

"You will tell me everything, and if nothing romantic or sexy happens, you will make it up for my entertainment."

"You want details of Will's sex life?"

"Coming to think of it... Yeah, give me lots of dirt, but replace Will with Gareth."

Sarah laughed. "You really have taken a shine to him, haven't you?"

Amanda smirked. "No, I just like kicking a man who's already lying down. Something about that guy makes me want to see him squirm. Nobody should be allowed to prance around looking that confident. Also, he -is- better looking than Will, and he's not my boss."

* * * *

"I'm not watching that!"

"Come on, Sarah, it's an awesome film. Alien is cult!" Toby pleaded, waving the dvd cassette. Saturday night family dinner had been interrupted by a sudden invitation to a housewarming party, leaving Sarah and Toby with the house to themselves and plenty of pizza.

"I don't care. It creeped me out when I was a kid. I'm not watching it," his sister shot back. Several goblins perched on the sofa, watching the siblings argue like spectators at a tennis match.

"Geez, Louise, by today's standards it's almost Disney. What were you doing watching something like that as a kid anyhow?"

Sarah stole a handful of popcorn from the bowl that Truff and Elmo were holding on to. "I wasn't. I read the comic book version. It freaked me the hell out when the alien came out of that guy's chest. I never actually watched the damn movie and I don't want to watch it now."

Her brother rolled his eyes. "And you're how old again?"

"Whatever. I like the sequel. The sequels. I think I like number three best, actually, although clone Ripley kicks ass too."

"Nah, the second movie is the best. Chavez is my kind of girl."

"Does Sharon know she needs to pick up a pulse rifle and a Hispanic accent?"

"Beats a riding crop and a British drawl, doesn't it?"

"Ooh," Truff squeaked.

"Them's fighting words," Octavius agreed and stuffed popcorn into his baseball cap.

"He," Sarah picked up a pillow from the sofa. "Is," she aimed it at Toby's head. "Not my boyfriend." Thwack. "Besides. Ripley would have him for breakfast."

Toby ducked, too late, and emerged from under the pillow, laughing. "You think Ripley is awesome but you don't want to watch the movie that made the character famous?"

"Damn straight. Ellen Ripley was a goddess to my generation. A strong female character who wasn't in the movie to fall in love with some male lead and live happily ever after or be rescued in the last minute by Captain Hero. It doesn't hurt that Sigourney Weaver was gorgeous."

"Even bald?"

"Yeah, even bald." Sarah stuck her tongue out, and then turned to the assembly on the sofa. "What do you guys want to watch?"

"Xena!"

"Yeah!"

"Warrior Princess!"

"A mighty princess forged in the heat of battle!"

Sarah rolled her eyes at them. "You're not tired of that show yet?"

The goblins shook their heads energetically.

"Okay, Xena it is," Toby consented and replaced the dvd cassette before hitting play. He and Sarah both snickered as the gang chanted along with the show's introductory voice-over, 'in a time of ancient gods, warlords, and kings...'.

"They're strong women characters too," Toby observed about the dark-haired warrior princess and her blonde sidekick. "Although you have to wonder about their wardrobes."

"Yi-yi-yiiiii!"

"Ack, Octavius, don't -do- that next to my ears," Sarah groused. "Fighting in a miniskirt was apparently all the rage in ancient Greece, along with razor edged frisbees."

"Chakram," Truff supplied helpfully.

"Whatever. Blue jeans and sneakers, now, there's a sensible apparel for the modern adventuress." Sarah reached for the popcorn and found that it had been emptied out already. Glancing at the coffee table for alternatives she noticed that no one had touched the fruit bowl. "Hey, I thought Didymus was coming over tonight?"

Toby shrugged. "Must have been caught up doing something else. You know Sir D, wave something shiny and he's in rapture."

"Sir Didymus is on a mission," Octavius supplied, stressing the word with a hush of secresy. "From the King."

"Guarding a bridge?"

"Nahuh." The goblin looked smug in the way of someone who knows a secret.

"He got ordered to give Ambrosius a bath?" Toby suggested.

"Mmmmmph-uh." Octavius mimed zipping his lips.

"He's gone to see the pretty lady," Truff said.

Octavius promptly swatted him over the head. "It's a secret!"

"What pretty lady is that?" Sarah asked.

Neither goblin said a word.

"Guys," Toby prodded.

Every goblin present was silent like a silent clam in a silent ocean beneath a silent sky.

The siblings exchanged looks. "Oh well," Sarah shrugged. "Whatever that's all about, you know Didymus and women. He'd rather rip his own tail off than do something offensive."

Toby nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Yi-yi-yiiiii!"

"Octavius!"

* * * *

Hopscotch was cleaning his fur carefully with a plastic comb that missed most of its teeth; he went about his personal grooming with great enthusiasm, though, seated on the sill of the window in the highest tower of the Castle Beyond the Goblin City. The comb had a sparkly, metallic sticker of a mermaid on it, and he was very fond of it. With the slightest of noises, a barn owl landed on the window sill next to the goblin who looked quite unperturbed by the disturbance. When the owl leapt off the sill and became the Goblin King before its claws – now booted feet – touched down on the sandstone floor, Hopscotch tucked the comb away and looked at his master.

Jareth stretched his back, hands on his hips, glowering. "Women," he muttered. "Can't live within them, can't live without them."

Hopscotch shrugged.

The King glared daggers at the goblin. "After everything I have done to make her feel comfortable with the role she has to play, everything I have said, everything I have done – I practically -begged- her to spend time here!"

Hopscotch shrugged again. All his mate ever asked of him was fresh eggs.

"What does that editor have that I do not?"

"Dark hair," Hopscotch suggested. "Not so much of it, though."

Jareth slapped his palm against his own forehead and dragged the fingers down dramatically as if trying to claw his own face off in frustration. "Courtship by coffee? It's bloody ridiculous!"

"She likes coffee."

"Yes, yes, I know she does," the King groaned.

"Give her oograh. Aways works."

Two-hued eyes pierced the little goblin with an expression so reminiscent of utter cluelessness that Hopscotch wondered if he had the pronounciation wrong. "Give her – what?" Jareth finally asked.

"Oograh. It's in one of the books Toby reads to us sometimes. The big troll loves another big troll and he gets her oograh and then she loves him and they move to the city and get married and he becomes a policeman with a huge crossbow."

"And what, pray tell, is this – oograh – exactly?"

"Weeds!"

"Hopscotch," the King drawled, "I am not going to walk up to Sarah, proclaim her likeness to a troll, and ask her if she wants to join me for some weed. Go play with the chickens and leave me to my misery-loaded monologuing."

"Yessir." Hopscotch obediently vacated the window sill and exited the room with a bounce, pausing outside only to listen admiringly to the sound of a crystal ball hitting a wall and being smashed into a thousand sparkly pieces.

* * * *


	17. I Knew There Was a Catch

Pete Thompson was handsome in a kind of burly way and Nicole liked the way he let his brown hair hang loose under the hoodie, untamed and shaggy. One of his eyebrows was pierced with a thin silver ring, and he had brown eyes that could be deceptively warm and sensual. He was lean but well muscled under the clothing that hung upon him like casually thrown on from a distance. All in all, he was quite the catch if one was to judge solely by looks. Unfortunately, she thought, the contents didn't quite match the label.

He caught her by the elbow during a break between classes and Nicole turned to shoot him a drop dead look. "Hi Nick, how's it hanging?"

"I'm fine," she replied. There were several other students in the hallway and she had no intention of creating a scene in front of an audience.

"Have a nice weekend?"

"Yeah, it was fine."

"So, I was wondering."

"Yeah?"

"You happen to know if Sharon's seeing someone?"

Nicole groaned inwardly. "I don't see how that's any of your business if she does, Pete."

Brown eyes flared. "I just want to be sure he's treating her right."

"Whatever."

"Why are you always so uptight, Nick? You know I love her."

She leaned over and hissed in his ear, "You -hit- her, Pete."

He winced. "I didn't mean to. You know that. You know me, Nick. I'm not that kinda guy. I'm just going through some tough shit lately and things got out of control."

"Whatever," Nicole repeated, throwing her chin up and walking on pointedly. "I don't want to hear it." She could feel Pete's glare like two tiny lasers on her back as she walked.

* * * *

"Okay, Anastasia, are you familiar with a small lilac grove in one of the castle gardens? There is a walkway above it. The place is kind of – dreamy, like it's not entirely solid."

The pig-faced goblin girl tilted her head, thought, and then nodded. "Yep. The King likes that place. That where you want to go, Sarah?"

She hoisted her bag up on one shoulder, Bikkit wriggling on her arm. "Yes, please."

"Okie dokie."

Pink glitter everywhere, her eyes included. Sarah held on to the ferret with one hand and her bag with the other, and tried to keep her balance as she passed through the dimensions. Practise did indeed make perfect because this time she landed more or less on her feet, swaying a few times, but at least not finding herself face down in the grass. She glanced at Bikkit who glanced back as if blaming her owner for the briefly passing spell of dizzyness.

Sarah put the ferret down. "Okay, fuzzball, go chase a chicken or whatever it is you do in your fantasies."

Bikkit scooted away, bouncing and dooking with glee. A giggle behind her caused Sarah to turn around and spot Anastasia sitting on her rump in the grass. "This is the right place?"

"Yep, it's exactly where I wanted to go. Thank you so much, Anna, you're a doll." Sarah let her bag drop and sat down next to the goblin, admiring the view as the scent of lilacs in bloom washed over her along with the lazy Underground sunshine and the playful breeze. She kicked her sneakers off and let the grass tickle her feet through the tennis socks, relaxing. Yes, the Underground was a far more pleasant place to be when you were not watching over your shoulder every other second dreading dangers untold and hardships unnumbered. If not for the fact that she had been bullied into it, this arrangement was turning out splendidly.

"I'm happy to help," Anastasia beamed, no doubt relieved that her abduction antics earlier on had been forgiven.

Sarah picked a straw and rolled it idly between her thumbs before aligning it carefully and blowing through it. A shrill whistle pierced the tranquility of the garden, a few tiny fairy heads popping out between the clusters of lilacs to see what was going on, and she grinned. "I can't believe I still remember how to do that."

The fairies went back to their business of pollination or whatever it was that fairies actually did when they weren't assaulting people's fingers; it seemed to involve a lot of flitting about and the occasional chirpy noise or squeak. Sarah leaned on her back, flat in the grass, resting her head on her arms. "You know, I really need to talk to someone who knows how this place works. I still have a million questions."

"Do you want me to go and get the King?"

"No, no," Sarah hurriedly declined the goblin's offer. "I meant, talk to someone else than him. No offense, Anna, but His Sparkliness isn't exactly a generous nature when it comes to answering questions, and besides, he's got way too much interest in making me see things the way he wants me to. I need a neutral observer." She sat up. "I need Pish and Tosh, I think."

The goblin nodded gravely and sat back down. Sarah rummaged around her bag until she found the small make-up mirror she had stashed in case she needed it. Like a cellphone, but with interdimensional signal, she mused and looked into it. "Pish and Tosh, I need you."

She barely had time to unwrap two peanutbutter sandwiches and fish a box of lamb flavoured dog biscuits out of her bag before the soft pad of canine paws on grass alerted her to the presence of her spirit guide – animal guardian – interdimensional tour guide – whatever. Handing one sandwich to Anastasia she tore the lid off the cardboard box and put it on the ground before leaning over, her own sandwich in one hand, to hug Pish and Tosh with the other. "Hi guys!"

"Hello, Sarah," Pish said, giving her as regal a look as a two-headed blue German Shepherd dog could muster.

"Biscuits!" Tosh cheered with considerably less dignity, wagging their shared tail.

Anastasia wolfed down her sandwich before either canine head might spot it and try to swipe it. Consequently she went very quiet, trying to lick peanutbutter off the roof of her mouth with her tongue and making some quite grotesque faces, even for a goblin, in the process.

"I was wondering if I could ask you guys some questions about this place?"

Pish smiled. "Yes, of course, Sarah."

Tosh said nothing. He was busy filling his mouth with biscuits. She had to wonder whether the two dogs shared the pleasure of munching since they shared their body except for the heads.

"Okay. Thanks so much in advance, you two are the best spirit guides ever." She took a bite of her sandwich and chewed before asking, "So this is some kind of pocket dimension or alternate universe?"

"That is a valid explanation. The Underground is not really a place in the sense that you are accustomed to. It is real in the same way that a dream is real as long as you are dreaming it," Pish explained. "The difference is that the Underground continues to exist until it runs out of, well, energy for lack of a better term."

She nodded. "The Goblin King said something along those lines, too. He said that he – spun – this place based on my imagination and that it feeds off my dreams, so that if I stop visiting and having anything to do with anyone from here, it will fade away."

"Yes. It will unravel eventually and His Majesty will need to find another source of energy, another dream to make real," Tosh agreed, maw full of crumbs. "I don't think he's in any rush to end this one, though."

"I'm not either. I'm just trying to understand."

"You won't," Pish stated. "But don't let that stop you from trying."

"You're another kind of being entirely," Tosh explained. "The way you perceive your existence is not entirely compatible with this realm. You may grasp the theories but you'll never understand it in your bones. That's probably a good thing too, since magic and riddles are such important parts of this dream."

"That kind of makes sense. So what is the King really? Morpheus?"

"Who's Morpheus?" Anastasia asked, picking crumbs off her dress.

Pish snickered. "The God of Dreams? Maybe."

Tosh tilted his head. "Maybe not."

"Well, that's not very helpful."

"He may have been at some time," Pish amended. "Maybe he will be again. It all comes down to the dreams. He can be anything and anyone. Whatever the dreamer wants."

"Of course he will also be himself," Tosh threw in between bites. "The dreams change but Jareth is, well, Jareth. That part doesn't change. He may change his name and his looks but he'll always be the lord of this place and he'll always be an arrogant and flamboyant character. That part is -him-."

Sarah took a bite and chewed before speaking. "That makes sense too. If he can pick the dreams he puts to life, he can pick ones that place him in a role he cares to play."

Both dog heads nodded.

"So what's in it for him? Why does he do it? Can't he just make himself some kingdom that is exactly what he wants, and then, well, live happily ever after or whatever he does?"

"He can," Pish agreed. "But he needs the energy to spin and maintain the realm."

Sarah frowned. "So if he can trap people here..."

"They feed the realm their energy," Tosh concluded.

She finished the sandwich and folded her arms around her knees. "I'm suddenly liking him a lot less."

The two canine heads tossed down the remaining few biscuits and then they flopped their collective body over on the side to laze in the pleasant sunlight. "We never said he was not dangerous," Pish pointed out. "We helped you get away from here, too."

"He permitted us, though," Tosh said. "We could not be here against his wishes. It's his kingdom."

"I need to think," Sarah said quietly. "I knew there was a catch."

"I'm gonna sit here and wait until you want me to take you home," Anastasia promised with solemn loyalty.

* * * *

What sort of dress does one wear on a first date with someone who happens to be one's employer? Sarah could not help picturing herself back in college flying apart over which eyeshadow to wear and whether to paint her fingernails for a tentative first date as she rummaged through her wardrobe. If in doubt, wear a small, black dress – she had read that somewhere, probably in some fashion magazine at the hairdresser's. That'll knock his socks off for sure. Her rational side countered, you work for this guy, you don't want to reduce him to a drooling mess and then have to deal with sexual tension all over the office tomorrow. Light summer dress, flowery thing, casual? It's a restaurant, not a garden party. Whoever decided that blue jeans and a shirt were not appropriate for just about anything needed to be shot.

Eventually she settled for simplicity: A knee-length black skirt, a pretty white blouse, and a small black jacket that radiated efficiency, control, and a hint of feminity all in one. Toss on a pretty necklace and a scarf in bright emerald green to offset her eyes and she was done. Her reflection in the mirror looked efficient, intelligent, and business-like. Meh, it would have to do. She let her hair hang free for the occasion, instead of propping it out of her way in a pony tail.

Will was on time, like always, and Sarah opened the door almost before the doorbell had finished ringing. Standing there with his hand still raised Will looked good; charcoal pants with a matching blazer, a white turtleneck that contrasted elegantly with his dark hair, and in his free hand, a single red rose, long stemmed. She could almost hear Amanda wolf whistling in her mind.

"Are you ready to go?"

"Shouldn't I be?"

Will laughed. "Yes, well, you know what they say. It's a lady's prerogative to keep a date waiting for at least half an hour. You look lovely and you're on time. This is for you."

She accepted the rose with a smile. "Thank you, Will. It's beautiful. You can come in and pace around the living room for half an hour if you want, I wouldn't want you to feel you're missing out."

He grimaced and offered her his arm. "I'll survive. My ex-wife does that to me every time I come to pick up the kids, without fail. It's one of her little ways of punishing me."

Sarah took the offered arm and let him lead her down the stairs of the apartment building. "Let's label the exes a no-go zone. I really don't want to start comparing notes on the evil that is divorce."

"I'm definitely not going to argue about that," Will conceded with a smile as he opened the car door for her. "And while we're at it, let's try not to talk too much shop, either. I know I keep gravitating towards it but feel free to kick my shin under the table if I get started on deadlines and prospects."

"Will do," Sarah laughed. "You should have let me wear combat boots, though."

"I'd like to get through the evening without ending up in a wheelchair."

* * * *

"What's a wheelchair?"

Behind another car, another little gnarled figure whispered back, "It's like a chair, but it has wheels."

"Hush," a third little figure in a ninja costume inserted. "We can't be seen or heard by her."

"Yes, we can."

"Nope."

"Can too. She can always see us."

"But we're not supposed to let her see or hear us."

"Why didn't you say so?"

"I did, I said – "

"Shut up," the first goblin cut in. "Is the pigeon ready?"

"All systems go for launch, boss."

The first goblin grinned widely and ripped off a line from its favourite TV show: "Make it so, Number One."

* * * *


	18. Prepare to Get Shouted At

Luigi's turned out to be a quiet little place with a rustic charm and no pretentious airs. Sarah particularly liked the way the candles on the tables and in the windows were placed in empty, oval wine bottles covered under layers of dribbled, dried candle wax on the woven grass baskets that cradled the bottles. It was very Italian, and went very well with the scenic black and white photos of late 19th century Italian cityscapes that decorated the walls.

She picked an appetizer of fried mushrooms and black olives with a glass of white wine, and relaxed into the welcoming atmosphere. "This is nice. How come no one's ever told me about this place before?"

"They don't do much in terms of advertising," Will replied. "Mostly word-of-mouth."

"It's lovely. How did you find it?"

"My ex-brother-in-law told me about it once. He takes all his conquests here."

She tilted her head to give him a look. "Oh, I see."

"Jason is an idiot but he's got great taste in restaurants."

"I suppose that proves that there is something good in everybody," Sarah nodded. "Although sometimes you need an excavation team of archaeologists with spades and shovels to find it."

"At least Jason isn't likely to show up on a regular Wednesday evening with some ditzy blonde on his arm. I don't think I could keep a straight face one more time. I know all his lines by heart, I think."

"That bad, huh?"

"Like a bad movie script. Some people never change."

The salt in the pepper pot and vice versa in the salt pot did not bother Sarah much. She had been annoyed when the table decoration caught fire, but then, she was not the one who had to clean up the mess. The goldfish swimming in the decanter of sparkly water, now, that was an unexpected touch – even if it had quickly resorted to swimming belly up. What really sucked, though, was that Will was so -nice- about it all. That, and the fact that for some reason he kept returning to the topic of his ex-wife and her family, and then catching himself at it and apologising for entering the no-go zone of conversation.

She listened politely to small-talk about Will's hobbies; she would not have taken him for an exotic fishes kind of guy but as it turned out, he spent a fair amount of his free time taking care of a batch of cichlids the names of which she would never be able to pronounce or remember. They apparently required a fair bit of care and he was happy to provide detailed information on the best choices of filters and aquatic plants in case Sarah herself felt a sudden urge to introduce a few fish to her household.

"I don't think a fish tank would go very well with a ferret," she observed. "I'd probably end up with a very wet and very full ferret."

Will chuckled. "Most fish tanks are covered by the lamps, though. Your ferret would not be able to get in there."

"I'm not sure that the concept of an inaccessible space even exists in the ferret dictionary."

He speared a bit of feta cheese on his fork and nodded thoughtfully. "Clearly what you need is a tank full of piranhas."

"There'd be potential for a lethal alliance there," Sarah agreed. "Between them, there would be nowhere safe on the planet. Honestly, though, fish just don't speak to me. They can be very pretty but they don't do anything but swim and eat and occasionally die."

Will glanced at the water decanter.

Sarah nodded. "I'm not going to ask either."

He chuckled. "It's just such a – well, such a Sarah Williams thing to happen, really."

She blinked at him. "How's that?"

"I don't know exactly – I've just noticed that things always get a little strange around you. Not in a bad way, more like you have an effect on your surroundings. Little accidents happen, things go missing and then turn up the next day, that sort of thing." He nodded at the decanter. "Even that sort of thing. But you never get upset about it, you just shrug your shoulders and go about your business."

"I'm blissfully oblivious?"

"Hardly. You're just not easily upset."

Sarah nodded. "I suppose. I never really pay much attention. Stress isn't good for you."

"Oh, but you do. It shows in your art, Sarah. There's always these little figures somewhere, working mischief. Sometimes I think you live in this other world full of magical brownies and you just pretend to the rest of us that you can't see them either."

"Wouldn't that be something," Sarah smiled. "I could get them to pose for my paintings. Excuse me a moment, I have to go and visit the little brownie's room."

* * * *

"You do realise that if Sarah catches you spying on her she'll rip you a new one," Toby observed from his position standing just behind the Goblin King's throne. He was leaning in over the shoulder of the throne's occupant to watch the crystal orb that twirled slowly on the fingertip of the lounging king. Inside the sparkly ball, a goblin in a ninja costume was slinking along a wall panel, carrying a dead goldfish in one grubby hand.

Jareth hitched one shoulder. "Technically, it's not her I'm spying on."

"Yeah, well. She's my sister. Change the channel."

The Goblin King looked up at the youth with mild irritation. "I am watching Sarah, or rather, her goblin entourage, to ascertain that nothing severe enough to require medical assistance or police intervention occurs, whether through intent or through typical poorly thought out goblin design."

Toby's brow knit. Telling Jareth what to do was never wise; he might just go and do the exact opposite in order to stress that he was not yours to command. However, the master of manipulation was not immune to manipulation himself. Just a matter of finding the right angle to go at it from.

* * * *

Once the door to the ladies' room closed behind her, Sarah looked around intently. Sure enough, balanced on the sink sat Truff, proudly holding the goldfish that had been served with sparkly water earlier, and the baseball cap that disappeared into one of the two stalls likely sat on Octavius' head. She put her hands on her hips. "Okay, guys, what's going on here?"

"Nothing," Truff said and hid the dead goldfish behind his back. It was probably beyond first aid's reach anyhow.

Sarah grimaced. "Nothing, tra la la?"

Truff nodded enthusiastically.

"We're just watching," Octavius said from inside the stall.

"Octavius, unless you just turned into Octavia, get out here this instant."

"Okay." The goblin hopped out under the door and came face to face with Sarah's knee. "Don't be upset, Sarah."

"There was a dead fish in my water. I have the right to be upset."

"I didn't know it would die," Truff wailed.

She shushed him quickly. "Guys, you need to stop this stalker routine. I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself. I don't need you to follow me around, all right?"

"We can get rid of him for you?" Octavius suggested with hopeful deviousness.

Sarah grimaced again. "I don't want to get rid of him. In fact, all I want is for you guys to go home."

"No can do."

"Why not?"

"We have to send the pigeon back when you're leaving."

"What pigeon?"

Octavius sighed. "The pigeon. We send it back so the other team knows you're coming." He gave her a somewhat impatient look, as if this was bloody obvious.

"Guys. Look. Whatever you have to do, do it quietly. No more dead fish. No more switching condiments around. No more setting things on fire. If you have to watch, keep out of my way and don't do anything. Am I making myself clear?"

Both goblins nodded solemnly.

"Good," Sarah said, and turned to walk back into the restaurant. "Make sure you remember. Quiet."

As the door closed after her, Truff peered at Octavius. "That's no good."

The baseball-cap sporting goblin grinned. "The others didn't promise nothing."

* * * *

Toby watched the crystal in fascinated horror as the second goblin crew argued its next actions. Spilling grape soda on Will's pants was dismissed instantly because neither him nor Sarah were drinking that particular beverage. Anastasia had flatly refused to allow anyone to sneak in under the table to fake a disturbing game of footsie; it might just encourage either party. Elmo did manage to knit the word 'DOOM' into Will's spaghetti but sadly, he failed to notice. When Sarah's wine turned to gravy and vice versa, she simply emptied her glass over her steak and pretended that everything was as it should be. The team was currently arguing whether to break the heels on her shoes so that she would have to decline any offers of moonlight walks.

"She's going to go ballistic," the youth murmured. "I can't believe you're letting them do this to her."

"Sarah has allowed the goblins to grow possessive of her and now she is paying the price."

Toby sighed. "I know, I know. This is my last girlfriend all over again. She's still refusing to talk to me. Is there nothing we can do?"

The King frowned. "Nothing short of going there myself and ordering them back to the Underground." He released the crystal and let it float away from him until it eventually settled on an empty patch of sandstone floor. After a while it popped like a soap bubble, leaving a few fading specks of glitter in its wake.

Toby walked over to settle on the window sill opposite the throne dais. He put his legs up and then glanced back at the King. "Jareth, can I ask you something very personal?"

He looked up, one winged brow arched. "And what might that be?"

Those inhuman eyes could flash with an anger that he knew he could not stand up to, and so Toby kept looking out over the Labyrinth. Besides, he did not feel too comfortable with this whole touchy-feely stuff between guys. "What do you really want with my sister?"

"You know very well what I want."

"Nope. I know how the story goes, obviously, but I kinda figured, well – that was twenty years ago."

The King rose and walked over to stand next to the youth on the window sill. "Why do you want to know?"

Toby studied his hands. "Well, it's like – you're my best friend. I don't want to have to chose sides or get caught in the crossfire if you two decide to have at it. I don't want you to get hurt – again, okay?"

Jareth folded his arms over his chest. "I'm not sure what I feel," he said with uncharacteristic openness.

"Would you take advice?"

"Maybe. If you stop squirming."

"You're not human, Jareth. You kick ass when it comes to manipulating people but you don't really have the first clue about what it's like to -be- human. You're damn good at figuring out what people want to hear and how to push their buttons but it backfires sometimes. I mean, people make assumptions about you, and you make the assumptions come true."

The King nodded. Only the tightness of his lips betrayed any emotion at all.

Toby sighed. "Okay, so you've been the bad guy in Sarah's universe for twenty years. She's not going to start trusting you and taking everything you say at face value just because you haven't brought the sky down on her head yet. That sort of thing takes time, but if you just do what you usually do, then you're gonna fuck this up. You need to start thinking human."

"And what are you suggesting, pray tell?"

Oh, that soft voice. Toby knew he was on thin ice. The Goblin King's temper was mercurial, and whether it was reasonable or not, he considered himself to be royalty and expected the respect that he felt the title demanded. Toby tended to believe that his ancestors didn't boot King George's redcoats out of the country so that he could bow to another monarch a few centuries later, but he usually obliged his friend's quirks. This was just part of who and what Jareth was. "Well, if it was me I'd get my ass over there and call off the goblins before they do something that really pisses Sarah off."

The King tilted his head. "And that would be the human thing to do?"

Toby grinned at him. "Yeah. But prepare to get shouted at. A lot."

"And am I expected to hug you in a manly way now?"

"Er, we can skip that part. I don't mind. You can thump my shoulder if you -must-."

* * * *


	19. She's Mad All Right

Will tipped generously; likely he felt obliged to, after having had to ask for a new fork no less than six times as they kept disappearing whenever he turned his head. He helped Sarah into her coat and fortunately did not see the expression on her face when she noticed that someone had scribbled "I SUCK" on the back of his coat in white chalk. She patted his back comfortingly and managed to wipe it off before anyone else might notice. Surprisingly he kept on smiling and chatting all along. She managed to keep a polite mask plastered on herself but on the inside, what she really wanted was to roast goblins over a spit.

"I must have been a terrible person in a past life," Will stated as he looked at the wind shield of his car, covered in decorative white patterns of a nature that had direct relation to the digestive functions of pigeons. He clicked the remote control on his keyring to unlock the car, and watched in mild fascination as absolutely nothing. "I don't believe it."

"What's wrong?"

He clicked again. "I think the car battery is dead."

"You must have been Hitler."

He scratched his chin. "Or Djengis Khan. This must have been the worst date you've ever been on."

Sarah had to smile. "It's been pretty awful, but none of it has been your fault. You've been remarkably patient, all things considering."

"I'm gonna have to call you a cab, though. This car's going nowhere and if I don't stay with it until I can get a service truck to come over, my insurance won't cover. What an evening."

"I'm sure we can ask someone to help out. It doesn't take more than a couple of minutes to recharge a battery if someone in the restaurant will lend us a couple of jumpstart cables. Hell, I had to do it all the time with my old car." Sarah began to take her coat off.

"That's not going to be enough," Will said gloomily and pointed down.

Some bastard had slashed his tires.

"You got to be kidding," Sarah muttered. If the Goblin King turned out to be behind this, she would have his balls for Christmas decorations.

"Some day we're going to look back at this and laugh," Will offered with a helpless shrug. "That day sure isn't today, though."

"I'm sorry, Will. I'll just walk home. My place isn't far from here and honestly, I could use the peace and quiet of a late night stroll."

He frowned at her. "Are you sure? It's late at night, you could get mugged."

Only if the mugger wanted to end up in hospital covered in goblin bites, she thought, but replied, "I took self defence classes as a teenager and besides, I'm not really mugger material. I'm either too old or not old enough."

"Well, I'm not going to end this disastrous date in an argument. Do you have a cellphone in case you change your mind, though?"

She fished it out of her purse and showed it to him. "I'm a big girl, I can tie my own shoelaces too."

He raised his hands in surrender. "Okay. I'm not going to suggest a goodnight kiss here in the street either. Maybe next time."

Sarah smiled. "Yeah. Goodnight, Will. And thanks for everything, you know, in spite of everything."

* * * *

The heels of her pumps went clickety-clack on the pavement as she walked down the street, a lonely figure in the night. Then she turned a corner , bringing her out of Will's range of vision, and promptly stared at the nearest dumpster with murder in her green eyes. "Okay, you can come out now."

Obediently, several little figures waddled out from their hiding places. One of them was still chewing.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? I thought you guys were my friends!"

The goblin terror squad hung their heads.

"Are you mad, Sarah?" Elmo asked tentatively.

"Am I mad? Would I be mad just because somebody nice invites me out? Because for the first time in months I'm going to spend an evening having a friendly conversation with someone who's not either family or female? Because somebody else took it upon themselves to make the entire evening a goddamn nightmare? Why the hell would I be mad?"

"She's mad all right," a goblin wearing a burglar mask concluded.

"No, I'm not mad. I'm livid. As of right now the lot of you are -grounded-."

Several pairs of beady eyes stared at her in confusion.

She ticked points off on her fingers. "That means no visits to my place, no cake, no game nights, no TV, no following me around, no -nothing-. I don't want to -see- any of you lot until I get a very sincere apology and an even better explanation for tonight."

Confusion turned to horror.

"That's not fair!" Elmo whined.

"I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry," the burglar mask goblin began chanting until Muffle kicked his shin.

"Get out of here. Scoot. I don't even want to look upon you miserable little monsters right now. Go!" She practically shouted the last word and the street became goblin free within seconds; only small poofs of glitter remained, sparkling in the erratic light of the lamp posts.

Then she heard a slow clapping, like a one man audience, accompanied by a certain sensation of -presence- that she associated with only one specific person in the entire universe. Slowly Sarah turned around and looked at the Goblin King, leaning casually against a shop window. Regardless of how dashing he looked in his black armour and cape she felt nothing but fury at the sight; in fact, showing up in battle dress hinted that he might be expecting a confrontation as well. "You."

"Me," he agreed.

Her eyes flared. "You've got a lot of nerve to show up right now."

He straightened up and walked towards her. "I came to call the goblins off. However, you've certainly managed to discipline them on your own."

"Am I supposed to say 'thank you'?"

"Somehow I suspect that is not what you feel like telling me at the moment, no."

"Damn straight, Goblin King."

Jareth waved a gloved hand imperiously. "Well, get started on shouting, then."

Sarah gritted her teeth. "How is this not interfering with my life? Aren't you supposed to leave me alone unless I wish you here or something? What is up with these random appearances?"

He inspected his hand with a positively bored expression. "I cannot do anything to you. I can most assuredly affect the rest of the world, which happens to include this street. For what it's worth, I'm sorry that my goblins ruined your date."

"Gah." She threw her hands up and started walking.

The King fell into stride next to her. "Gah?"

"Yes. Gah."

"I see. And what does 'gah' translate to?"

"I can't exactly scream at you when you've just apologised, can I?"

Two-coloured eyes glittered. "Is that so?"

Sarah shot him a look that would have made a lesser man tuck his tail between his legs and run for higher ground. "Don't count your eggs just yet, mister. I have a few other issues I could get started on, such as how you conveniently forgot to tell me that you intend to trap me Underground to feed your vampire parasite of a kingdom."

Glittering turned to sparkling, and then he laughed – not scornfully or mockingly but with genuine amusement. "Oh, Sarah. Do you really think I would have let you go if that was my intention? You've given me no less than four perfect occasions to carry out such a plan."

"No power, remember? You can't hold me against my will."

"I cannot hold you -magically- against your will," he corrected. "Nothing would stop me from closing the portals to your world, though. Come, come, Sarah. I let your spirit dog thing roam free in my Labyrinth to take you there and back when you wanted. If I wanted to trap you, would I have allowed it to warn you in the first place?"

"Gah."

"I did not apologise this time."

Sarah stopped and looked straight at her companion. "Do you really expect me to take everything you say as gospel truth? Especially tonight, when your minions just wrecked the first date I've had in months? They slashed his tires, for fuck's sake. They killed a fish. They set things on fire. And here's you, wanting me to be your, I don't know what, your human battery? When do I get what I want? Maybe I want a normal life without supernatural stalkers or fairytale villains and just the occasional infestation of sickeningly cute goblins begging for cupcakes? Don't you have someone else to poof in on? Hell, what does your princess think about you taking off in the middle of the night to lurk around another woman?"

Jareth blinked. Then he laughed. Again. "Oh, Sarah," he managed, between bubbles of irrepressible amusement, "you really need to stop taking things for granted."

"Care to clue me in on the joke?"

"Princess is your ferret," he replied, finally managing to stop his shoulders from shaking. "She doesn't wear a collar with a name tag, in case you've forgotten."

"Gah!" She threw her hands up. "You're impossible!"

Jareth's eyes narrowed. "As a matter of fact, you're the one who is being unreasonable, ungrateful, obnoxious, and insulting. Not to mention whiny."

"Whiny?" Sarah's voice rose several octaves.

"Oh yes. Everything you wanted, I have done. From the first time we met and until today I have done nothing but accommodate your preconceptions. You should be on your knees, thanking me for my generosity and my concern." He raised a hand, halting Sarah's impending explosion. "But then, you're human. I am starting to realise just how differently we view the situation."

"You stole my brother, you drugged me, you put me in mortal danger several times over, you bullied my friends, you scared the crap out of me, and you expect me to thank you? After -tonight-? You're a – spiritual mosquito!"

For a moment she was not certain whether the King was going to laugh again or blow a fuse. Judging from the expressions that flashed across his handsome features, neither was he. His jaw clenched, and then unclenched as he eventually shook his head. "Will you let a mosquito offer you a quick way home, at least?"

"It's not far. I can walk."

"Stop being so bloody stubborn. It's infuriating."

"Look who's talking." Sarah felt her temper deflate. She was tired; exhausted, even. Her back was aching and her shoes were not really made for hiking expeditions. "Fine. Take me home."

* * * *

Someone knocked on the window. Sharon fought off the urge to sink deeper into her bed and pretend that she was asleep and did not hear; he would only get angry and start throwing things at the house or worse, save up his fury for later. With a sigh she slipped out from under the warm covers and went over to open the window a notch.

"Yo, Sharon." Pete was reclining against the window pane, outside.

"Hi."

"Were you asleep or something? You look like a haystack."

"Yeah, it's after midnight."

"Gonna let me in or what?"

She hesitated. "Pete..."

"Oh, come on," he said irritably. "Don't you trust me? I'm not some random stalker. I just want to talk."

Sharon chewed her lip. "Pete, I'm kinda – seeing someone."

He flinched as if she had struck him. "You are? What's his name?"

"It doesn't matter," she tried, but he cut her off. "Who is this guy? Some fat geek from that stupid game of yours? Is that the best you can do, some douchebag gamer? You're such a mess, Sharon, look at you."

She hung her head and then she caught a glimpse of movement in the bushes behind her ex. A small animal, maybe.

"Sharon, Sharon," Pete murmured. "My little mouse. Why do you keep doing this to yourself?"

"I don't know," she said.

"Let me in and we'll talk about it, okay? You know you can tell me anything. I take care of you. I'll always be there for you."

Sharon's hand raised as of its own acccord and moved towards the window when the honey spell of his words was broken by more rustles in the bush. "Pete, I think there's an animal."

"Forget the fucking bush, Sharon. Let me in. I swear to god I'm gonna break the window." His voice was icy, perfunctory, and she had no doubt that he would act on his threat. She did not want to have to explain another broken window to her dad. No one could be that clumsy, twice.

The bush growled.

Pete looked back over his shoulder. "What the hell? You have someone's dog running around your yard now?"

A small, reddish face peered out at him between the branches, whiskers twitching.

"It's a fox," Sharon said in wonder.

"Go away," Pete told it. "Fuck off or I'm gonna find a stick."

The fox's jaw curled up in a snarl as the small predator crouched low on its hind legs.

"Pete, maybe you should leave it alone – "

"Shut up, Sharon, you don't know shit about animals. Open the damn window, I'm getting pissed off here and you know you hate it when I get angry."

She reached for the window again hurriedly, and again her attention was diverted; this time by a howl of surprise and pain. The fox's teeth were firmly attached to Pete's shin and its body was trashing back and forth as he tried to shake it off and shout abuse it at simultaneously. "Fuck," he shouted, "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

The lights came on upstairs and Sharon cringed inside. Her dad worked long hours and he did not appreciate being woken up in the middle of the night. She quickly dove back into bed and pretended to be asleep in case he checked up on her. The front door to the house banged open and heavy steps merged with the sound of Pete's yelling. Then there was a racket as if someone was trying to hit a dog or a fox with a broomstick and the unmistakeable sound of her father chasing her paramour off his property with assorted threats of physical violence.

Finally the heavy steps moved up the staircase again and the house fell silent. She slipped out of bed once again and tip-toed to the window. Outside, the fox sat on the lawn, proudly holding a piece of blue jeans in its teeth. She would swear it winked at her.

* * * *


End file.
